#how to start at tutoring service at home

[tuteehub-blog]

Top 7 Tips to Find the Best English Tutor Home for Your Child’s Success

Discover how to select the perfect English tutor for your child with our top 7 tips! From understanding teaching styles to checking qualifications, these insights will guide you to make the best choice for your child's educational needs. 🎓💡

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#Education #ParentingTips #EnglishTutor #LearningSuccess #ChildDevelopment

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

My. Gosh. It's so helpful to help people

[broadway-and-books-love]

.

[respectthepetty]

I am a MosBank Truther!

I do not hate all fan service. I think it's good to see men casually touch each other in public AND get paid to do it. My favorite pairs for fan service are MaxTul, who WILL return to me one day; YinWar, who understand the "Business Gay Performance" concept; JoongDunk, who are my GMMTV fighters; and MosBank. But unlike all of these other 200 branded pairs running around in BL Land, I actually think MosBank are a real couple, and I truly believe that they are already married. *looking you directly in your eyes* I'm serious. And I have thirty images from their recent appearance on the Har Tum Show to prove it.

But first, if you are not familiar with this show, Eclair is the host and she invites guests over to cook while she shit talks, and babygirl is quick. Jes and Bible from 4 Minutes were recently on, and while Jes matched Eclair's energy as this was his second appearance on the show, Bible was lost in the sauce, which only made their appearance even more delightful. And the reason is because homegirl casually drops sex jokes and snappy quips into the conversation, so guests must be on their toes to keep up.

AND MOSBANK CAME PREPARED!

Bank and Mos already know Eclair. Bank knows her from college, and Mos knows her from mutual friends *cough* Bank *cough* so they got down to business quick, and by business, I mean dick jokes. They are making deep-fried shrimp sushi, so Bank immediately holds the cucumber to size it up, and Eclair jumps into Bank's blowjob skills after briefly discussing how many shrimp are in the meal. +2 for talking about oral sex five minutes in.

This prompts Bank to sing "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid (in English) because it ties into the discussion of the ingredients needed for the meal (shrimp, seaweed, salmon) and blowjobs. No points given because even though Bank can sing, Ariel doesn't deserve to take strays about blowjobs.

Mos discloses that Bank's family owns a durian farm, so the queer movie of the moment The Paradise of Thorns gets mentioned, but Bank throws in his critique that they are more like The Paradise of Scorns. +2 for Bank's wittiness and Mos' sensible chuckle

Then Bank reveals that he is the one who scouted Mos for Star Hunter because he was thirsting over Mos' pictures on social media. +4 because Bank . . . same. I, too, would slide into Mos' DMs after perusing his socials.

As the conversation continues, both men confess that they hated school, but Bank is the smarter one on paper ONLY because he knew he wanted to be an actor and didn't want to appear dumb, so he got tutoring to get rid of his country accent and up his grades, while Mos only got his grades up because his mom sent him to an all-boys school in Bangkok 💀 Eclair is surprised because she thinks Bank plays up the "dumb-blonde" persona, and they joke that's a good thing because he can get away with it. +6 for Mos and his all-boy school

And then we get into the domesticity! Mos and Bank have randomly mentioned they live together throughout the years, so Eclair starts asking questions about their home life. Mos likes to do the chores. Bank likes to shop.

Eclair thinks Bank would feel guilty for not helping Mos with the chores, but both men correct her that Mos likes doing these things, and if Mos was her boyfriend, he'd gladly do it for her too. +10 because Bank does not cook nor does he clean, but he got that ring!

Because Mos seems too perfect to be true, Bank throws him under the bus and admits it bothers him that Mos doesn't say he loves people or misses them NOT EVEN HIS PARENTS OR FAMILY! -2 only because Bank brings this up every year in their Valentine's Day videos, and Mos still is tight-lipped.

But he quickly recovers because he says Mos isn't a man of too many words and actually shows his love through actions, like buying him a Celine bag and other stuff that he cannot mention even though Eclair pressures him to share. No points given

Eclair asks if either one of them gets upset easily, but specifically targets Bank since he is known for having an attitude in their travel videos when he is hungry or tired. +2 to Eclair for being shady

Once they sit down to enjoy the meal that Mos has basically single-handedly made for them, the conversation gets sad when Bank mentions he just wants a good life for his parents and how he misses his grandma, who was his biggest supporter but died during the pandemic so he didn't get to see her before she passed.

It's a heavy moment, but Eclair spins it and asks Mos if he has any sad tales to tell, to which Bank immediately answers that Mos' family is nothing but happy vibes and good times. +1 for the look exchanged between Bank and Eclair because people who have happy families make us all a little sick.

Eclair latches on to the fact that Bank answered the question about Mos' family, and Mos casually responds that Bank would know because he has met his family, several times, since he goes home with Mos, each time. +4 because this is the domesticity that has me convinced they are already married since they are holding hands under the table.

From the way Mos is talking, it's clear the boys stay AT his parents' house when they visit, so Eclair asks if Mos' mom ever hears them.

Mos, in a serious voice, instantly replies that they are quiet.

Bank bursts into laughter, but Eclair isn't done and wants to know what quiet things are done quietly, so Mos offers the only acceptable answer - "Whatever Bank wants" +100 points for Mos being perfect

The conversation gets back to the original point of Bank visiting Mos' family and the guys talk about the first time Bank went home with Mos. The aunties were aflutter when they saw Bank with Mos and because Mos comes from a small community, the entire village practically knew before they even got to the house.

They even recreate the aunties on the street breaking their necks to get a glimpse of Mos' rich boy. +3 for the way the boys deliver it

When they were walking the streets or at the market, they knew people were talking about them (out of curiosity), but whenever Mos or Bank would acknowledge them, the aunties would scatter. +1 for knowing that small town talk is not a negative thing but a way of sharing news

Everywhere they went, people would already know who Bank was because the chisme was running rampant! +2 because the boys are telling the hell out of this story and they are telling it TOGETHER, like both are telling it at the same time. It's glorious!

And since we understand that they were staying AT the parents' house, it seems as if they were also staying in the same room since Grandpa came to collect them once aunties started standing outside of the house wanting to take pictures with them. +2 since Mos is thrilled that Bank was so popular with his people

After the story, Eclair puts on her business cap and opens the door for the guys to talk about their various projects and socials, but the lady is a professional who can turn anything into a sex joke.

MosBank have a YouTube channel called Mong Biew which is a play on their names, but Eclair asks if it's a play on "Bong Biew" which apparently means tilted, and at first I thought she was making a straight/gay joke, but nope! It's a dick joke because Mos proudly declares that it's straight!

And I'm giving Mos another +100 points because this kid gets it! I thought Bank was going to easily steal the show, while Mos was busy cooking, but Mos is just as quick and snappy with his comebacks. He isn't just a Instagram thirst trap! The boy's got moxie!

Because this is still business, the guys give their product placement spiel for an anti-bloat mix, Air-X, and Eclair quickly turns capitalism on its head when she gets Bank to admit he farted on set during one of his romantic scenes with Mos. +4 points to Eclair for making a product placement hilarious and getting the chisme!

And the show wraps up with Eclair giving Air-X another spotlight as she states it's the second item Bank would pack for a trip AFTER HE PACKS CONDOMS!

2000 POINTS TO MY FAVORITE MARRIED COUPLE because we all win when the aunties approve of the boyfriend and Eclair can get a good dick joke or ten out of it!

[discordiansamba]

something something AU in which Zuko is Ikem's son, but everyone in the royal family (including Zuko) knows about it and the ripple effects that has on the story.

in which Ikem gets married to Ursa, but this does not matter to Azulon at all. He is determined to introduce Roku's bloodline into the royal family, so he simply absolves their marriage and has Ursa marry his second son instead. She has no say in the matter. The only wrinkle is that she is already pregnant. Ursa carries Zuko to term anyways.

he has no royal lineage, but he is still of Avatar Roku's bloodline- and Azulon decides that could still be useful to him. Zuko's fate hinges on whether or not he is a firebender- if he isn't, then Azulon will allow the boy to return to his blood father. if he is... then he will remain at the palace and will be raised as a member of the royal family.

unfortunately for Zuko, he is.

Zuko grows up keenly aware he's the odd one out in the royal family. He's not of Sozin's bloodline- it's just an accident that he ended up as part of the royal family. It's clear his step-father resents his existence, especially once he and his mother have a child of their own. he grows up resenting Azula in turn, because she serves as constant reminder of everything Zuko's not.

(Azula resents him because it could not be more obvious why mother likes her half-brother better.)

everyone knows that Zuko's title of 'prince' is a farce. he has no royal blood. he is simply Fire Lady Ursa's child from her previous marriage. he is expected to learn how to carry himself as one, but he has no duties at the palace. the only thing he is truly expected to do is to be a good firebender, and Zuko's not even really that.

(Azulon is indifferent. As long as the boy can marry well, his children may one day be of service to the royal family.)

he's an outsider in his own home. his step-father barely acknowledges his existence. fire lord azulon does, occasionally, but it's rare. his mother loves him, and so does his cousin Lu Ten- who doesn't seem to care that they don't share any blood. But then Lu Ten goes off to war- and dies. Then Azulon dies, and his mother disappears.

Zuko is suddenly very, very alone.

he manages to avoid the fallout for three years. he had just started lessons with master piandao, who manages to convince the new fire lord to allow zuko to come and live with him for awhile in order to truly study the way of the sword. those are probably some of the best years of Zuko's life- he thrives there.

(he also learns things there that his tutors at the Caldera would never tell him.)

but he can't avoid the inevitable. he has to return home at some point. ozai never quite strips him of his title of prince- but he's not his heir. azula is the crown princess. zuko is just an extra. he might be a useful pawn for marriage, like his step-grandfather always said. at the same time, it's obvious that ozai is looking for an excuse to get rid of him.

zuko keeps his head down. tries to not give him one.

ozai finds it anyways. zuko is burned and banished- sent to look for the avatar. he knows the task is impossible. lu ten's father- his step-uncle- is there to keep an eye on him. he wonders if maybe there's a fraction of a chance that his step-father might actually see him as worth something if he manages to do the impossible.

then he does. and the avatar is a twelve year old child.

he can't do it. he knows what his step-father and half-sister are like. when the avatar escapes, he doesn't even try that hard to stop him. he lets zhao temporarily detain him. then in the middle of the night, he packs his bags and leaves.

the avatar needs someone to teach him firebending. maybe it should be him.

[hyunniesgirl]

Another Love | part 3

Summary: you've been hopelessly in love with Han since you were children. One night you confess your feelings to him.

Words count: 5,082

Warnings: do I even have to warn you guys about angst at this point?

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

A/N: this is not proofread because I'm sleepy, tomorrow I'll probably come back and fix the things that should be fixed.

I'm planning two or three more parts for this fic.

Seungmin got home after work and awkwardly told you he found a new roommate, it's a friend from his highschool time.

“That's great”, you tell him, even though you're worried, because that means you have to go back home and you just don't know if you're ready yet.

“I asked him for two weeks, so I could settle everything, so take your time”, he says and you nod.

That is a good amount of time, Jeongho is coming to see you in two days and you're really looking forward to seeing him. You find yourself already missing the man even though it's barely two weeks since you last saw him last.

Things with Jeongho are going slowly but great, he's sweet and makes sure you're comfortable with every advance he makes. You can't deny, being the object of affection of such a handsome and interesting person is flattering.

“Do you wanna go out before I move out? We can go watch a movie or eat something nice, it's on me”, you ask while watching him walk to his room.

“That would be nice, I'll check my schedule and we can set the date”, he tells you before closing the door to his bedroom.

You're so grateful to Seungmin, if it wasn't for him you would have been forced to stay living with Jisung after he rejected you, or you would have had to rent a crap apartment on short notice so you could have a place to stay without bothering anyone.

Speaking of the devil, it's the first time in a few days you're thinking about Jisung and you realize how relieved you are. It makes you believe things are finally looking up for you.

Living in Japan, Jeongho can only come to see you on weekends when he's not working. So you basically spend two weekends a month with him, it's not perfect but at the same time you two decided to take things slowly so you're taking your time to actually develop your feelings for him. What doesn't take very long.

You're not sure if it's because you were deprived of an actual romantic relationship for quite some time or if it happens to be like that because Jeongho is such a warm person to be around, but you just know you like him.

You are at the airport, waiting for him to arrive. When people start coming out of the gate, you tiptoe trying to find him in the crowd.

He's doing the same as you, but being taller it's not so difficult for him to find you. You jump and wave with your arms even though you know he already saw you, but you're just too excited to see him.

“And here I thought it would be difficult finding you”, he stops in front of you while you throw your arms around his neck and squeeze him into your embrace.

“I missed you”, you tell him. He chuckles, bringing his hands up and cupping your face, lightly brushing his lips on yours before landing the most sweet kiss.

“I missed you too”, he tells you, connecting your foreheads. You smile brightly, feeling warm.

You really like Jeongho, and that makes you wonder how your life would have been if you had said yes to him in middle school.

“Let's go”, you say, intertwining you fingers with him, “you have to rest because I have lots of fun planned for us”

He nods, paying attention to every word you say while you tell him some of the things you want to do during the weekend.

You stay in his hotel since you can't take him to sleep on Seungmin's sofa. You two ask for room service and talk about everything—his life in Japan, his work, your major, your tutoring and how things are going now that you will have to go back to live with Jisung.

“How are you feeling about that?” He asks, while you eat.

“Honestly, I don't know”, you tell him. “But I'm pretty confident, things are different now, I even have a hot boyfriend”, you joke, making him choke on his food.

“I don't remember being asked out”, he says, raising one eyebrow.

“Well, I thought it was a giving”, you shrug, biting on your burger, “since you're down bad for me”

He laughs out loud, throwing his head back.

“I'm not saying you're wrong, but you could be a little more humble”, he tells you, grabbing a napkin and whipping the ketchup off of the corner of your lips.

“Don't you think I've been humble enough for like a decade?”

“You got a point”

You soon finish your dinner and turn on the TV so you can watch a movie. It's just comfortable being with Jeongho, he makes the storm that usually is your mind become a light rain.

The next day is packed, you wake him up at 9 a.m. knowing it's going to be difficult to take him out of bed, especially when he keeps holding you and trying to make you stay in his warm embrace.

“We have to go”, you tell him, trying to escape from his heavy arm around your waist.

“Just more five minutes”, he asks, snuggling his head in the crock of your neck.

You really do want to stay like this with him, but you can't be swayed, you two have a full schedule that must be fulfilled.

“Jeongho, we must go or we are going to lose my first surprise”, you pout.

“Surprise?” He asks, backing away to look at you.

“Yes, I prepared a lot of things for us to do this weekend”, you give him a smug smile, “I didn't tell you half of it yesterday”

“Hm, that does sound interesting”, the hold on your waist tightens, making your body press even more against his. Jeongho lands a kiss on your cheek, then on your neck, going slower, “but you'll have to give me more than that to convince me that anything you planned is better than this”, you gasp feeling his hot breath hitting on your skin.

“I-”, you're not sure if you want to go out anymore, after feeling his soft lips again. “Babe”, you whisper, almost giving up when he flinches, backing away again. He is blushing.

“Did you just call me ‘babe’?” He asks flustered and you nod, smiling sheepishly.

“I mean, if you don't like it-”

“Of course I like it”, he answers fast, sitting on the bed. “Let's go, if you keep this up I won't let you get out of this bed for the whole weekend”, he tells you, getting up.

That offer does sound tempting, you sigh, but you two really do have lots to do.

Jeongho is not your first boyfriend, you didn't spend years pining over Jisung just waiting. Trying to get over him one way or another, you had your fair share of relationships, they just quite never made you feel like it was enough.

Until now. Jeongho easily swept you off your feet, liking him is just natural.

“Say cheese”, he asks while taking a selfie of you two, you're resting in a cafe after walking for hours.

“You really do like taking pictures”, you say and he nods.

“I do, especially when I'm with the second prettiest woman in the world”, he tells you.

You chuckle.

“May I presume that the number one is your mother?”

“Of course, dear. Who else could compete with you?”, he jokes, making you roll your eyes.

Jeongho’s name is called and he excuses himself to go to the counter to get your orders. This cafe you're visiting just opened, it is pretty popular and always crowded. You were only able to secure a table for your date because Hanna has a friend who works at the cafe and they were able to reserve it for you.

You hear the noise from the bell on the door and lift your eyes out of your phone to look at it, meeting Jisung's eyes.

What is he doing here?

“I didn't want to say it, but I think the cake you make is prettier than this one”, you hear Jeongho's voice, making you turn away to look at him, praying that your best friend won't try to talk to you.

Jeongho is much more sensible than you think, he picks up on your sudden stiffness and the awkwardness on your face, looking around to find out what happened. He sees Jisung coming in your direction hand in hand with a girl.

His right hand moves fast to the hand you have on the table, and his left one lands on your back, giving you reassurance.

“Jisung, it's been a while”, Jeongho says, voice more stern than you're used to, making you look at his face again, to see him almost glaring at your friend.

“Jeongho”, Han smiles, glancing at the hand your boyfriend has over yours and noticing how close you're from each other, “I thought you lived in Japan”, he points out.

“I do, but I come often to visit my girlfriend”, Jeongho smiles pretentiously.

“Your what now?” Han asks him, but he's looking at you, “last time I checked you haven't seen each other for almost ten years”

You turn your hand around, interlacing your fingers with Jeongho.

“Well, it has been a while since you last checked”, you answer, confidently.

Jisung's stand falters and the frown in his face is just priceless but you feel bad that he had to find out this way.

“Why are you being so awkward”, Lia says, glaring at him, “you should be happy for them”

She smiles at you.

“I'm happy for you, y/n, please take good care of her”, she tells Jeongho and he smiles kindly at her. “We will be on our way, then”

You have known Lia for a few months now. She was always nice to you, going to the apartment all the time and you thought her and Jisung to be just friends until you saw him smiling when he picked up her call, the same smile you have coveted for so long, wishing you were the one in the receiving end of that smile.

But you never were.

There's no reason for you to dislike her just because she is with him, now you have your own love and you don't need to wish for the affection of someone that doesn't have it in them to give it to you.

“Well, that was awkward”, Jeongho's voice takes you out of your daze. “Are you alright?”, he asks, bending down to be closer to you.

You smile at him, giving him a peck on the lips.

“I'm good, I have you”, you tell him. The man smiles brightly, tilting his head while looking at you lovingly.

“Now I'm thinking you're the one who's down bad for me”, he scoffs playfully, standing up and sitting in front of you.

“I can't confirm nor deny”, you say, winking at him. “What I can confirm is that the cake I bake is prettier than this one”, you bring back what he told you before.

“That's what I'm telling you!” He says excitedly, forgetting about Jisung, and honestly, you do too.

Why is she laughing so much? Is he even that funny? Or is she just trying to win his favor? Those are the thoughts Jisung has in his head while waiting for his order to get ready, he can't stop stealing glances at you, he misses your smiles and your laugh, there was a time he was the main reason for that beautiful sound to come out of your mouth.

“They look good together”, Lia's voice never sounded so annoying to him, what is she even talking about? You and Jeongho don't look good at all.

He gets up when his name is called, going to the counter to pick up his order and walking outside to meet Lia after. He can't stop thinking about you, if you hadn't gone away he would be the first person to know about you and Jeongho. It's just weird for him not being the first person you tell things to, that's what is bothering him he's sure of it.

The fact that he couldn't listen to anything Lia said throughout their whole date honestly worries him, Jisung has no idea what's happening to him and why he's acting this way towards the girl he was so into a few months ago.

He tries to bury himself in work, doing everything to stop thinking. He's afraid of what he's going to find out if he dig any deeper trying to understand his feelings.

You're in front of your apartment, you know the passcode and you know Jisung is not there at that moment but you just can't move. You have your huge bag hanging on your shoulder and another one on the floor, the only thing you have to do is go inside, so why is it so terrifying? The other time you went there to pick your books and some clothes, you didn't feel this way.

Was it because you knew you were not staying? Or was it because you and your best friend were on better terms at the time? Maybe you should just rent a crap apartment and go live alone. But how are you going to explain that to your parents? You can’t run away from Jisung your whole life, he is your best friend.

“Oh dear, were you traveling?” You hear the voice of the old lady who lives right next door.

You turn around, putting the sweetest smile you have on your lips.

“Hello, Mrs. Park, I was visiting a friend”, you half lie.

“Oh, that sounds like fun”, she giggles, “are you having trouble going inside?”

“Actually, Jisung changed the password and forgot to tell me”, you smile, lying through your teeth now, “I'm waiting for him to answer my texts”

She nods.

“Oh, your generation don't like to call, right? If I were you, I would call him until he picked up”, she jokes, “would you like to come inside to wait? You're going to get tired by just standing there”

You breathe, relieved, you know it's just a temporary measure but you'll take any opportunity not to enter your apartment yet.

“I would love to”, you answer her, grabbing the bag from the floor and following her inside.

Her apartment has pretty much the same layout as yours, but the decoration couldn't be any more different. She has lots of trinkets, frames and a clock hanging on the wall. There are a lot of pictures of her children and grandchildren.

“What about your husband?” You ask, sitting on the sofa while watching her going through the kitchen and putting some water to boil.

“He's visiting his brother in the countryside”, she answers. Your eyes wander around the room, landing on a frame with a beautiful couple. The picture looks old as it has a lot of aging marks.

“Oh, it's me and my husband”, Mrs. Park says, making you flinch to hear her so close to you. She has a proud smile on her lips. “Quite a handsome couple, weren't we?” She points out and you nod.

“Yes, a very charming couple”

She sighs, putting the tray with the teacups on the table in the center of the room.

“You know, he was my best friend”, she sits on the sofa, pointing to the other side for you to do the same, “I didn't always see him as a man, you know? I was in love with someone else at the time he confessed”

You stare at her, not sure what she's trying to say.

“But that guy broke my heart and he was there to pick it up and I fell in love”, she completes, with loving eyes.

“I'm not sure if I understand”, you say, feeling strangely uncomfortable.

“I'm telling you that the person you like may take a bit of time to understand his feelings”, she smiles kindly, “but I'm sure he will come to his senses”

You drop your eyes to your hands, fidgeting with your fingers. You're sure the old lady is only telling you that so you can feel better, but you don't feel like that at all. You don't want Jisung to like you now, you are exhausted from waiting for him.

“Your story is amazing, Mrs. Park”, you tell her, “but I already have someone who's absolutely sure of his feelings for me”, you stand, “I don't think I'll have to wait for another love”

She stares at you for a moment, analyzing you, trying to guess if you're being serious. Then, she smiles, standing too.

“I'm glad you came to that conclusion, honey”, she gets closer, patting you on the back. “Did Jisung send you the password?”, she asks, seeing you collect your bags.

“Yes, I have everything I need to go back home”, you say, thanking her for the hospitality.

You take a few deep breaths before pressing the password on the lock of your door. The house is the same as it was when you last went there.

You put your things in your room, unpacking your belongings and putting everything in place. You go to the living room, opening the glass door to the balcony so some air can circulate inside, you're sure Jisung spent his days out and didn't worry about opening the house a bit.

You go to the kitchen, there's nothing in the freezer, you already knew that you'd find it empty so it's time to go grocery shopping.

You're in the middle of the vegetables section when your phone buzzes. Looking at the device, you see Jeongho's name lightening the screen.

“Hey”, you answer, smiling.

“Hello, my love”, he says, you hear heavy breathing in the back of the call.

“Is everything okay?” You ask, worried.

“Yeah, I was hitting the gym and they called me from the office saying they needed me”, he sighs, rustling at the other side of the line.

“If you're in a hurry why are you calling me?” You ask, frowning.

“Of course, it's because I told you I would call you in the afternoon”, he tells you like it's the most obvious thing in the world and you giggle, feeling the happiest at that moment, warmth growing on your chest.

“You could have just texted me”, you tell him.

“Then I wouldn't be able to hear your sweet voice”, you're sure he has that flirty playful smile on his lips while saying that.

You sigh, leaning on a shelf from the store.

“I miss you”, you tell him.

On the other side of the line Jeongho stops on his tracks, smiling to himself while fidgeting.

“Me too, I can't wait to see you next weekend”, he says, “I was thinking maybe we could have dinner with all your friends so I can be officially introduced?”

“Yeah, that would be great”, you say, “I'll talk to them”

“Okay, I have to go now but I'll text you later”

It's great having someone who actually reciprocates your feelings, much better, someone you're so into as Jeongho.

You walk out of the elevator struggling to carry the groceries, finding a feminine figure hovering over your door. When she turns around, you recognize Lia.

“Hey”, you frown, did Jisung not tell her he was out?

“Y/N, hey!” She says, smiling at you. “Here, let me help you”, she says, grabbing two bags out of your hands.

“Thank you!” You say, “Jisung is not home right now, but come inside to wait for him, I don't think he's going to take long”

You open the door, giving space for her to walk in and then close the door.

“I'm sorry about showing up unannounced”, she smiles sheepishly, putting the bags on the table in the kitchen. “I texted Jisung but he didn't see my texts, I just wanted to give this to him”, she says, taking a pot out of her bag.

“Oh, okay”, you take it from her hands and turn around, putting it in the fridge.

“You can have some, I made a lot”, she says awkwardly and you smile at her.

“Thank you, Lia. Are you sure you don't want to wait?” You ask, looking at the mirror, you're sure he will be home soon and if she stays it's less of an opportunity for you to speak to him.

“I have class”, she sighs, “can you tell him to call me?”

“Sure, I'll tell him”, you nod. She starts walking to the door and you accompany her, saying goodbye and watching her enter the elevator, waving goodbye to you while the doors are closing.

You're sure you could have been friends if things were different. You sigh, rolling up the sleeves of your shirt while going back inside.

You brought a lot of vegetables, they all need to be washed before being put in the fridge, so you start taking them out of the bags to organize everything.

You have the sink’s tap running and some music playing on your phone, so when the door is opened and a tired Jisung enters the house you don't seem to notice.

He stares at you as if you're a mirage, happiness overflowing in his chest with your presence back home. He watches as you hum to the song playing, a few strands of your hair falling on your face.

With a bowl of vegetables ready to be stored, you turn around bumping into your best friend, making you jump.

“When did you get here?” You ask, with your hand on your chest, heart beating fast, not sure if it's because of the surprise or because you're finally facing him.

“I just got here”, he lies, he can't tell you it's been minutes he's there watching you.

You nod, opening the fridge to store the vegetables, trying to avoid his gaze. Not sure of how to act now that you're back.

“Oh, Lia stopped by and left you this”, you point to the pot.

“I'm sorry, I didn't know she was going to come here”, he starts explaining and you frown.

“There's no reason for you to apologize, she's your girlfriend”, you answer nonchalantly and he steps back, feeling a sudden ache in his chest. You're not even looking at him while saying that, but why is it that you look so unbothered? Are you really over him? That's what he wanted, so why doesn't he feel relieved?

“She's not my girlfriend”, he tells you, frowning. You finally look at him, he's staring at you like he expects something from you. You don't know what he wants and you sure don't have the energy to try and find out.

“Anyway”, you say, closing the fridge, “I'm sure she'll be your girlfriend soon, you can bring her anytime you want don't mind me”

“Won't you feel uncomfortable?” He asks, fidgeting uncomfortably.

“Not at all”, you grab your phone and put it in your pocket, ready to go take a shower. “I plan on bringing my boyfriend a lot here, so it won't be fair to you if you can't do the same”

You flash him a smile before heading to your room. You're acting the same as you did before your confession, so why does it make him so miserable now?

“So, does he want to ask for your hand in marriage or something like that?” Felix asks, making you and Hannah choke on your drinks, while Hyunjin and Minho laugh at your reaction. “I'm just asking!”

“No, why would you even think that?”, you chuckle.

“It's such a formal thing to have dinner like this”, Seungmin points out, “normal people just arrange a meeting at a cafe or something like that”

“He likes y/n, he must not be right in the head”, Jeongin says and you smack him in the head, making him pout.

“I think it's cute that he wants to meet you all formally”, you say.

“I think it's nice too”, Hannah supports you, “if you guys don't wanna go just say it”

“Now, we didn't say that”, Minho says. “It's just a bit weird to finally meet a boyfriend you actually like. Especially since we all thought Hannie would fall in love with you eventually”

You nod, sighing and feeling a bit upset with his comment, but you know it's impossible for people to forget you were in love with Jisung for more than a decade.

“Yeah, I get where you're coming from, but I'm happy with Jeongho and I want you all to meet him and know how great he is”

Minho nods.

“Yeah, okay. Then, I guess I'll have to give him the ‘dad talk’”, he says seriously and everyone laughs at your terrified face.

“Please don't”, you beg him.

You get home earlier than expected, Jisung is not home yet so you have the house to yourself for a bit. A long, hot shower is everything you need to relax. It's been a long week with awkward interactions between you and Jisung, you kept trying to avoid him, at least until you feel comfortable like you used to.

You spend too much time organizing your wardrobe, when you look at the time you realize how late it is. So you grab a towel and hurry to the bathroom, trying to get back to your room before Jisung gets home.

The hot water does wonders to you, even though you have to take a quick shower, it helps a lot with your sore muscles from stress.

When you wrap yourself in the towel and your clothes are nowhere to be found, you know you fucked up. It's even worse when you hear the beeps at the door, fucking hell. Things are already awkward, if you walk out of this bathroom in only a piece of fabric, things will be even worse.

You can tell Jisung is in the kitchen because you can hear him walking around, opening the cabinets and humming to some music while setting the table. You're sure you can just run to your room and he'll never know this happened.

That would be a great plan, actually, if Han wasn't knocking on your room's door exactly when you got out of the bathroom.

He turns around, with a big smile on his face that automatically dies down the moment he sees you. Your life is so fucked up, really. You have been living together for three years, of course he had seen you in only a towel before but things were inevitably different now. Maybe he thinks you did this on purpose?

"Ahm-", you're trying to explain yourself, you can tell he's speechless, "I was trying to shower before you arrived and happened to forget to take my clothes with me", you say, smiling sheepishly.

"Oh, yeah", he answers, stepping aside so you can enter your room. "You can come eat when you're done, I brought pizza", he says and you nod, walking fast into your room and locking the door.

From now on you'll have a checklist of things you have to take to the bathroom when showering so your dumbass doesn't forget about the most important thing: clothes.

Han feels his ears getting warmer, you look somehow different, he just can't tell exactly what changed. Every other time you saw him in a towel or the other way around, you both would brush it off and laugh about it, why does he feel so embarrassed now?

"Did you change your hair?" He asks, your mouth is full so you can't answer him right away.

"No? Maybe it grew a bit"

"That must be it", he nods.

Yeah, it's definitely her hair that's different, he thinks.

"I'll do the dishes, you must be tired after practicing all day", you say, gathering the plates.

Han nods, getting up and telling you he's going to take a shower.

The image of the drops of water running from your hair through your neck and chest and disappearing in the soft fabric is the first thing that comes to Jisung's mind when the hot water hits his skin.

Where you always like that? Your skin looked so soft, he felt the urge to caress it, what would your reaction be if he touched you?

Han frowns, why the hell is he thinking about that? He must be crazy, it's the only reasonable answer.

The fact that another date with Lia went by and Jisung couldn't pay attention to a word she said makes it clear to him that things are not the same between them and that he doesn't want to keep things going as they are.

“I think we shouldn't see each other anymore”, he says, when they arrive at her apartment. Lia's hands stop before she can open the door and she turns around slowly, looking at Jisung.

“What are you talking about?” She asks, leaning on the door, staring at the guy she likes. He sighs, trying to come up with a good explanation for the reason he wants to end things.

“I just, don't feel the same anymore”, he looks at his feet, not able to look her in the eyes yet.

She is staring at him, crossed arms in front of her chest, trying to hold the tears, trying not to break.

“You have been acting indifferent to me for quite some time now”, she points out, with a bitter smile on her lips. “I should have ended things when I first noticed it, I guess I just like you that much, huh”, she completes, taking a deep breath.

“I'm sorry”, Han sighs, finally looking at her, “I didn't mean to hurt you”

“Yeah”, she scoffs, “Is it because of y/n?”

Jisung's eyes widen.

“It was always quite clear that she liked you”, she completes, before he can say anything. “I just didn't pay any mind to it because you guys have been friends for such a long time”

“It's not like that-”, he tries to argue.

“That day at the cafe you couldn't take your eyes out of her and that guy”, she points out, “she liked you for so long and right when she finds someone else you start liking her?” Lia scoffs, feeling the tears brimming in her eyes.

“I don't like her like that”, he says and the girl rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that”, she says before turning around and entering her apartment, closing the door in his face.

A/N: If you like what I write please reblog or let me know in the comments, feedback give me motivation to keep writing. Also, you can buy me a coffee.

Taglist: if the tag didn't work please check your settings and let me know(I won't be tagging people with no age visible on their profiles or blank blogs)

@hhwangsmoon @weareapackofstrays @shycreationdreamland @adestayskz @skizmee @ca11me3mily @realviviboss @sofix-hc7 @seungminsapuppy @starsandrqindrops @its-hannjisung @redstayrosie @mae-is-cute98 @blithevix @astro-doll-the-star @vlctorriaa @captainchrisstan @rag-iii @notastraykid @hanoobinie @jisunghannie @applepie-macaroon @stayingdelulu @sundayysunshine @kidrauhlschik @wolfennracha @meloncremesoda @hanschimpmunk @realrintaro @teejisung @maexc @gyustarzzi @ellebasiyx @ivaneedssleep @chaeryred @daemon-bunny @broken-glowsticks @ch4nniebang @sleepyleeji @seukijeuxq

[tqavaaas]

𐙚˙✧˖°📷 ༘ ⋆｡ ˚ 𝘊𝘏𝘌𝘌𝘚𝘌.ᐟ [𝘛𝘈𝘒𝘌 𝘈 𝘓𝘖𝘖𝘒 𝘈𝘛 𝘔𝘠 𝘉𝘖𝘠𝘍𝘙𝘐𝘌𝘕𝘋]

༊*·˚ ୧ ‧₊˚ ☾ ༘ ೀ⋆

·.𐙚 ༉‧ 脹 ちょう 相 そう

𝖲𝖴𝖬𝖬𝖠𝖱𝖸 ┊ 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘴

𝖶𝖠𝖱𝖭𝖨𝖭𝖦𝖲 ┊ 𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘦

𝖯𝖠𝖨𝖱𝖨𝖭𝖦𝖲 ┊ 𝘧𝘦𝘮!𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘹 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘰

MDNI ACCOUNTS DNI PLEASE

To start off, this man would be so protective, not in a bad obsessive way. It’s just perfect. He knows when to step in and when you can handle it yourself.

you two would definitely have cats—maybe a black cat or two, and if you aren’t a dog person then deal with it. But seriously, if you prefer dogs he’d probably get a Doberman or a German Shepard; protective like him :)

Beatles and Nirvana kind of guy, blasting it at 2am in the car with you driving around, a hand on your thigh as you speak your mind and eating fast food.

Would Venmo you money, don’t have enough for coffee? 15 bucks in your account. want a shirt? +50 bucks. You don’t know how he gets all the money, when you ask he’ll just say from work.

Loyal!!! I mean loyal. You’re one of the only one he follows his social media, will hand you his phone the same millisecond you ask. Like this man would probably close his eyes when a girl walks by, he’s so loyal and I’m here for it.

Simp boyfriend. If he’s fallen for you, he’s fallen HARD. He’d get on his knees and worship you like the god you are.

Clingy!! It’s not so clingy to the point he’s annoying. For example if your out in public with him, his hand will be in yours.

Cuddles are his absolute favorite. He’s just so giddy about the fact he can just lay with you and relax in his arms. He’s also the big spoon.

He absolutely loved when you ask him to help choose an outfit. When he sees you showing him and him only the outfits he’ll just admire you. Eyes full of love and like “woah, she’s my girlfriend.”

Overdressed girlfriend x underdressed boyfriend dynamic. You’d be wearing a bunch of jewelry and accessories, while he’d probably wear like sweatpants or cargo pants with a hoodie or tee. (But he wouldn’t be like this on fancy dates) and a bracelet with your initial ALWAYS.

speaking of jewelry, you both have matching ones. Like those magnet jewelry or ones with eachothers initials.

(best) friends to lovers trope, like for him to fall for you he’d have to know you well first. I personally love best friends brother but realistically it’s this one.

Dates at eachothers houses are the best. Sometimes you’d do movie marathons at his house (and his brothers would join you, ruining the moment) or bake at your house. Either way, he won’t make home dates boring.

If you suck at school, he’d be the type to tutor you and say like “I’ll give you a kiss for each answer you get right” when you haven’t seen him all day. on the other hand, if you do good at school then you’d do study dates together, but it’ll end up you going out on for a date.

Would wrap is arms around your waist. Cooking? A sudden weight in your waist, and his head rested on your shoulder. Or even cuddling, he’d want to pull you in closer.

Also with Physical touch, he’d be an acts of service type of guy. Like he’d open your car door, pull out your seat, tie your shoe, order for you, etc.

your family loves him. He’s such a family guy it’s unreal. Would get along with your dad and brother if you had one.

[astroismypassion]

✨PART OF FORTUNE IN SIGNS AND HOUSES SERIES: 4TH HOUSE✨

Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion

ARIES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Aries and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via starting your own small business from home or take a leadership role, especially in the kitchen, family matters, children, education, history and geography. You may be an excellent tour guide of your local town. You may also find wealth through becoming a coach, personal trainer or someone who suggest meal plan for a specific sport, for example meal plan for runners.

TAURUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Taurus and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via real estate, gardening, landscaping, art and craftsmanship. You can sell handmade items, such as pottery, jewelry or home decor. You may also offer gardening services, sell plants or draw plants and sell your drawings online. You could start a home-based catering service, bakery or sell homemade goods at a local market. You might be able to create financial plans for families since you have a knack for helping others to manage their finances.

GEMINI PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Gemini and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via writing articles, blogs, even e-books from home. Especially on platforms like Medium, Substack or starting your own blog from the comfort of your home. You may also offer tutoring services o reven create online courses in subjects you are passionate about (Udemy, Coursera, VIPKid).

CANCER PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via a home-based business, such as home bakery, daycare or arts and crafts. You could find abundance in life by becoming a life coach, counselor or therapist. You may earn money from a home-cooked meal delivery. You can also each yourself interior design.

LEO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Leo and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via music, singing, performing from home, tutoring someone in music and teaching them how to play an instrument. You may also post tutorials (for example guitar tutorials) online from the comfort of your home.

VIRGO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Virgo and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via selling your homemade jams, pies or granola mix. You may also offer healthy student snacks or offer tips on how to make those at home with cheap and easy ingredients. Again, you could feel abundant when starting a podcast or your own local book club or even themed book club.

LIBRA PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Libra and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via designing and selling your own T-shirts, designing logos for other people. You could be good at doing make up for weddings or birthday parties. You have a knack to be an excellent host at your own home. You feel the most abundant when you have balanced family relations and friendships, partnership.

SCORPIO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Scorpio and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via teaching people how to overcome tough situations in life and helping them find their purpose, hosting a leadership course online or from home. You may also enjoy talking about mental health and psychology.

SAGITTARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Sagittarius and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via showing tourists your hometown, hosting a culinary course in a foreign language on the local cuisine. You could also find abundance by becoming a local tour guide, even offering virtual tours of your local town.

CAPRICORN PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Capricorn and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via working with your parents, helping other families finding structure and order in the home, organising someone's closet.

AQUARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Aquarius and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via video gaming from home and streaming. You could also start a home-based business. You feel the wealthiest when you are being progressive, unique and standing out from the community. You may attract wealth by starting a podcast with your close friends, building websites from home or launching your own social media channel, platform.

PISCES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Pisces and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via taking photos of families or pregnant women. You may also do videos for someone's wedding, anniversary or birthday. You may host themed parties at home for your friends or poetry nights.

Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 68 - Babel by R. F. Kuang

Overview

I came to Babel with extremely little knowledge about the actual contents of the book but a deep sense of all the vibes swirling around its reception – that it was robbed of a Hugo nomination (if the author didn’t outright refuse it), that it’s probably the single buzziest and most Important sf/f release of 2022, that it was stridently political, and plenty more besides. I also went in having mostly enjoyed The Poppy War series and being absolutely enamoured by the elevator pitch of an alternate history Industrial Revolution where translation is literally magic. And, well-

It is wrong to say I hated this book, but only because keeping track of my complaints and starting organize this review in my head was entertaining enough to keep me invested in the reading experience.

The story is set in an alternate 1830s, where the rise of the British Empire relies upon the dominance of its translators, as it is the mixture of translation and silverworking, the inscription of match-pairs in different languages on bars of worked silver and the leveraging of the ambiguity and loss of meaning between them that fuels the world’s magic. The protagonist is pluckted from his childhood home in Canton after his family dies in a cholera outbreak and whisked away to the estate of Professor Lowell, an Oxford translator he quickly realized is his unacknowledged father. He’s made to choose an English name (Robin Swift) and raised and tutored as a future translator in service to the Empire.

The meat of the story is focused on Robin’s education in Oxford, his relationship with the rest of his cohort, and his growing radicalization and entanglement with the revolutionary Hermes Society. Things come to a head when in his fourth year the cohort is sent back to Canton to, well, help provoke the first Opium War, though none of them aware of that. The final act follows the fallout of that, by which I mean it lives up to the full title of “Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution”.

To be clear, this was technically a very accomplished book. The writing never dragged and the prose was, if not exactly lyrical, always clear and often evocative. Despite the breadth of space and time the story covers, I never had any complaints about the pacing – and honestly, the ending was, dramatically speaking, one of the more natural and well-executed ones I’ve read recently. It’s very well-constructed.

All that being said – allow me to apologize for how the rest of this is mostly just going to be a litany of complaints. But the book clearly believes itself to be an important and meaningful work of political art, which means I don’t feel particularly bad about holding it to high standards.

Narrative Voice

To start with, just, dear god the tone. This is a book with absolutely zero faith in its audience’s ability to reach their own conclusions, or even follow the symbolism and implication it lays down. Every important point is stated outright, repeated, and all but bolded and underlined. In this book set in 1830s England there are footnotes fact-checking the imperialists talking heads to, I guess, make sure we don’t accidentally become convinced by their apologia for the slave trade? Everything is just relentlessly didactic, in a way that ended up feeling rather insulting even when I agreed with the points Kuang was making.

More than that, and this is perhaps a more subjective complaint but – for an ostensible period piece, the narrative voice and perspective just felt intensely modern? This was theoretically an omniscient third person book, with the narrative voice being pretty distinct from any of the actual characters – with the result that the implicit narrator was instead the sort of person of spends six hours a day getting into arguments on twitter and for this effort calls themselves a progressive activist. The identities of all the characters – as delivered by the objective narration – were all very neat and legible from the perspective of someone at a 2022 HR department listing how diverse their team was, which was somewhere between a tragic lost opportunity to show how messy and historical racial/ethnic/national identities are and outright anachronistic, depending. (This was honestly one of the bigger disappointments, coming from Kuang’s earlier work. Say what you will of The Poppy War series, the narration is with Rin all the way down, and it trusts the reader enough not to blink.) More than that it was just distracting – the narration ended up feeling like an annoying obstacle between me and the story, and not in any fun postmodern way either.

Characters

Speaking of the cast – they simply do not sound or feel like they actually grew up in the 19th century. Now, some modernization of speech patterns and vocabulary and moral commensense is just the price of doing business with mass market period pieces, granted, but still – no 19th century Anglo-Indian revolutionary is going use the phrase ‘Narco-military state’ (if for no other reason than we’re something like a century early for ‘narco-state’ to be coined as a term at all). An even beyond feeling out of time most of the characters feel kind of thinly sketched?

Or no, it’s not that the characters are thinly sketched so much as their relationships are. We’re repeatedly, insistently told that these four students are fast friends and closer than family and would happily die for each other, but we’re very rarely actually shown it. This is partly just a causality of trying to skim over a four-year university education in the middle third of one book, I think, but still – the good times and happy moments are almost always sort of skimmed over, summarized in the course of a paragraph or two that usually talk in terms of memories and consequences more than the relationships themselves. The points of friction and the arguments, meanwhile, are usually played out entirely on the page, or at least described in much more detail. In the end you kind of have to just take it as read that any of these people actually love each other, given that at least two of them seem to be feuding at any given point for the entire time they know each other.

Letty deserves some special attention. She’s the only white member of Robin’s cohort at Babel and she honestly feels like less of acharacter and more a collection of tropes about white women in progressive spaces? Even more than the rest, it’s hard to believe the rest of the class views her as beloved ride-or-die found family when essentially every time she’s on screen it’s so she can do a microagression or a white fragility or something. Also, just – you know how relatively common it is to see just, blatantly misogynistic memes repackaged as anti-racist because it specifies ‘white women’? There’s a line in this that almost literally says ‘Letty wasn’t doing anything to disprove the stereotype of woman as uselessly emotional and hysteric’.

Also, she’s the one who ends up betraying the other three and trying to turn them in when they turn revolutionary. Which is probably inevitable given the book’s politics, but as it happened felt like less of the shocking betrayal that it was supposed to be and more just, checking off a box for a dramatic reverse. Of course she turned on them, none of them ever really seemed to even like each other.

As a Period Piece

So, the book is set in the 1830s, in the midst of the industrial revolution and its social fallout, and the leadup to the First Opium War (which is, through the magic of, well, magic ,but also mercantilist economics, make into a synecdoche for British global dominion more broadly). On the one hand, the setting is impeccably researched, recent and relevant historical events are referenced whenever they would come up, and the footnotes are full to bursting with quotes and explanations of texts or cultural ephemera that’s brought up in the narration.

On the other, the setting doesn’t feel authentic in the slightest, the portrayal of the British Empire is bizarrely inconsistent, and all that richly researched historical grounding ends up feeling less like a living world and more like a particularly well-down set for a Doctor Who episode.

The story is incredibly focused around Oxford as a city and a university. There’s a whole author’s note about the research and slight changes made into its geography and I absolutely believe its portrayal as a physical location and the laws about how women were treated and how the different colleges were organized and all that is exactly as accurate as Kuang wanted them to be. The issue is really the people. With the exception of a few cartoonish villains who barely get more than a couple pages apiece, no one feels, sounds like, or acts like they actually belong in the 19th century. The racism the protagonists struggle with all feels much more 21st century than Victorian, and the frame of mind everyone inhabits still comes across more as ‘unusually blatantly racist Englishman’ than 19th century scholars and polymaths.

This is especially blatant as far as religion goes. It’s occasionally mentioned, sure enough, but to the extent anyone actually believes in Christianity it’s of a very modern and disenchanted sort – this is a society that sends out missionaries as a conscious tool of colonial expansion, not because of anything as silly or absurd as actually wanting to spread their gospel. Also like, it’s Oxford, in the nineteenth century. For all the racism the protagonists have to deal with, they should be getting so much more shit from ‘well-meaning’ locals and students trying to save their (one Muslim, one atheist, one probably Christian but black and protective of Haitian Vodou on a cultural level which would be more than enough) souls.

Or, and this is more minor, it is a central conceit of the whole finale that if a few (like, two) determined revolutionaries can infiltrate Babel they’ll be able to take the entire place hostage with barely any trouble. This is because the students and professors there are, basically, whimpy bookworms who’ll faint at the sight of blood and have no stomach for the sort of violence their work actually supports and drives. Which – look, I really don’t want to defend the ruling class of Victorian Britain here, but I’m not sure physical cowardice is really one of their failings, as a group? I mean, there’s an entire system of institutionalized child abuse in the boarding schools they went to to get them used to taking and dealing out violence and abuse. Basically every upper-class sport is thinly disguised military drill or ritual combat (okay, or rowing). Half of them would graduate to immediately running off and invading places for the glory of the queen. I’m not sure two sleep-deprived nerds with knives would actually have been able to cow the crowd here, is what I’m saying. (This would stick out less if the text wasn’t so dripping with contempt for them on precisely these grounds.)

Much less minor are our heroic revolutionaries themselves. And okay, this is more a matter of taste than anything but like – the Hermes Society is an illegal conspiracy of renegade current and former Babel scholars dedicated to using their knowledge of magic and access to university resources to oppose and undermine the British Empire in general and the work of the school in particular. Think Metternich’s worse nightmare, but in Oxford instead of Paris and focused on colonial liberation (continental Europe barely exists for the purposes of the book, Britain is Empire.) So! A secret society of professional revolutionaries in the heydey of just that, with a name that just has to be Hermetic symbolism, who concern themselves with both high politics and metaphysics.

They are just so very, very boring. This is the age of the Conspiracy of the Equals, the Carbonari, the Seasons! The literal Illumanti are still within living memory! Where’s the pageantry, the ritual, the grandiosity? The elaborate initiation rituals and oaths of undying loyalty? They’re so pragmatic, so humble, so (and I know I keep coming back to this) modern. It’s just such an utter wasted opportunity. Even beyond the level of aesthetics, these are revolutionaries with remarkably little positive ideology – the oppose colonialism and racism for reasons they take as self-evident and so don’t feel the need to theorize about it (and talk about them with the vocabulary of a modern activist, because of course they do), but they’re pretty much consciously agnostic as to what world should look like instead. They vaguely end up supporting a sort of petty-bourgeois socialism (in the Marxist sense), but the alliance with Luddites is essentially political convenience – they really don’t seem to have any vision of the future at all, either in England or the various places they claim as homelands.

On Empire and Industrialization

The story is set during the early nineteenth century, so of course the Industrial Revolution is a pretty core part of the background. The Silver Industrial Revolution, technically, since the Babellers translation magic is in this world a key and load-bearing part of it. Despite the addition of miracle-working enhancers and supports to its fundamental technology, the industrial revolution plays out pretty identically to history – right down to the same cities becoming hubs of industry, despite steam engines using enchanted silver instead of coal and thus, presumably, the entire economic and logistical system that brought this particular cities to prominence being totally unrecognizable. This is not a book that’s in any way actually about tracing how something would change history – which isn’t a complaint, to be clear, that’s a perfectly valid creative choice.

It does, however, make it rather galling that the single actually significant difference to history is that the introduction of magic turns the industrial revolution into a Legend of Zelda boss with a giant glowing weak point you can hit to destroy the whole enterprise.

On a narrative level, I get it – it simplifies things and allows for a far happier and more dramatic ending if destroying Babel is not just a symbolic act but also literally sends London Bridge falling down and scuttles the entire royal navy and every mill and factory in Britain. It’s just that I think that by doing so it trades away any chance for actually making interesting commentary on anti-colonial and -capitalist resistance. A world where a single act of spectacular terrorism really can destroy a modern empire is frankly so detached from our world that it ceases to be able to really materially comment upon it.

Like, the principle reason to not take the Luddites as your role models is not that they were morally vicious but that they were doomed – capitalism’s ability to repair damage to infrastructure and fixed goods is legitimately very impressive! Trying to force an entire ruling class not to adopt a technology that makes whoever commits to it tremendous amounts of money (thus, power) is a herculean task even when you have a state apparatus and standing army – adding an ‘off’ button to the lot of it just trades all sense of relevance for a satisfyingly cathartic ending.

(This is leaving untouched how the book just takes it as a given that the industrial revolution was a strictly immiserating force that did nothing but redistribute money from artisans to capitalists. Which certainly tracks as something people at the time would have thought but given how resolutely modern all the other politics in the work are rings really weirdly.)

All of which is only my second biggest issue with how the book presents its successful resistance movement. It all pales in comparison to making the Empire a squeamish paper tiger.

Like, the book hates colonialism in general and the British Empire in particular, the narrative and footnotes are filled with little asides about various atrocities and injustices and just ways it was racist or complicit in some particular atrocity. But more than that it is contemptuous of it, it views the empire as (as the cliche goes) a perpetually rotting edifice that just needs one good kick; that it persists only through the myth of its own invincibility, and has no stomach for violent resistance from within. Which is absolutely absurd, and the book does seem to know it on occasion when it off-handedly mentions e.g. the Peterloo Massacre – but a character whose supposed to be the grizzled cynical pragmatic revolutionary still spouts off about how slave rebellions succeed because their masters aren’t willing to massacre their own property. Which is just so spectacularly wrong on every axis its actually almost offensive.

More importantly, the entire final act of the story relies upon the fact that the British Empire would allow a handful of foreign students seize control of a vital piece of infrastructure for weeks on end and do nothing but try to wait them out as the national physically falls apart around them. Like, c’mon, there would be siege artillery set up and taking shots by the end of week two. As with the Oxford students, the Victorian elite had all manner of flaws – take your pick, really – but squeamishness wasn’t really one of them.

On Magic

So the magical system underlying the whole story is – you know how Machinaries of Empire makes imperial ideology and metaphysics literally magical, giving expert technicians the ability to create superweapons and destroy worlds provided that the Hexarchate’s subjects observe the imperial calendar of rites and celebrate its triumphs/participate in rituals glorying in the torture of its ‘heretics’? It’s not exactly a subtle metaphor, but it works.

Babel does something similar, except the foundational atrocity fueling the engine of empire on a metaphysical level is, like, cultural appropriation. As an organizing metaphor, I find this less compelling.

Leaving that aside, the story makes translation literally capable of miracle-working – which of necessity requires making ‘languages’ distinct natural categories with observable metaphysical boundaries. It then sets the story in the 19th century – the era of newborn nation states and education systems and national literatures, where the concept of the national-linguistic community was the obsession of the entire European intelligentsia. Now this is not a book concerned with how the presence of magic would actually have changed history, in the slightest, but like – given how fascinated it is by translation and linguistics you’d think the whole ‘a language is a dialect with a navy’ cliché would at least get a light mention (but then the book doesn’t really treat language as any more inherent or natural than it does any other modern identity category, I suppose.)

As an Allegory

Okay, so having now spent an embarrassing number of words establishing to my own satisfaction that the book really doesn’t work at all as a period piece, let us consider; what if it wasn’t trying to be?

A great many things about the book just fit much better if you take it as a commentary on the modern university with Victorian window-dressing. Certainly the driving resentment of Oxford as an institution that sustains itself and grows rich off the exploitation of international students it considers second-class seems far more apt applied to contemporary elite western schools than 19th century ones. Likewise the racism the heroes face all seems like the kind you’d expect in a modern English town rather than a Victorian one. I’m not well-versed enough on the economics of the city to know for sure, but I would wager that the gleeful characterization of Oxford as a city that literally starts falling to ruin without the university to support it was also less accurate in the 1830s than it is today.

Read like this, everything coheres much better – but the most striking thing becomes the incredible vanity of the book. This is a morality tale where the natural revolutionary vanguard with the power to bring global hegemony to its knees through nothing but witholding their labour are..students at elite western universities (not, I must say, a class I’d consider in dire need of having their egos boosted). The emotions underlying everything make much more sense, but the plot itself becomes positively myopic.

Beyond that – if this is a story about international students at elite universities, it does a terrible job of actually portraying them. Or, properly, it only shows a certain type; just about every foreign-born student or professor we meet is some level of revolutionary, deeply opposed in principle to the empire they work within. No one is actually convinced by the carrot of a life as an exploited but exceedingly comfortable and well-compensated technician in the imperial core, and there’s not really acknowledgement at all of just how much of the apparatus of international institutions and governments in the global south – including positions with quite a bit of real power – end up being staffed by exactly that demographic who just sincerely agree with the various ideological projects employing them. Kuang makes it far too easy on herself by making just about every person of colour in the books one of the good guys, and totally undersells how convincing hegemonic ideology can be, basically.

The Necessity of Violence

This is a pet peeve and it’s a very minor thing that I really wouldn’t bring it up if that wasn’t literally part of the title. But it is, so – it’s a plot point that’s given a decent amount of attention that Griffin (Robin’s secret older brother, grizzled professional revolutionary, his introduction to anti-colonialism) is blamed for murdering one of his classmates who had the bad luck to be studying while he was sneaking in to steal some silver – a student that was quite well-loved by the faculty and her very successful classmates, who have never forgiven him. Later on, it’s revealed that this is an utter rewriting of history, and she’d been a double agent pretending to let herself be recruited into the Hermes Society who’d been luring Griffin into an ambush when he killed her and escaped.

This is – well, the most predictable not-even-a-twist imaginable, for one, but also – just rank cowardice. You titled the book ‘the necessity of violence’, the least you can do is actually own it and show that violent resistance means people (with faces, and names, not just abstractions only ever talked about in general terms) who are essentially personally innocent are going to end up collateral damage, and people are going to hold grudges about it. Have some courage in your convictions!

Translation

Okay, all of that said, this isn’t a book that’s wholly bad, or anything. In particular, you can really tell how much of a passion Kuang has for the art and science of translation. The depth of knowledge and eagerness to share just about overflows from the page whenever the book finds an excuse to talk about it at length, and it’s really very endearing. The philosophizing about translation was also as a rule much more interesting and nuanced then whenever the book tried to opine about high politics or revolutionary tactics.

Anyways, I really can’t recommend the book in any real way, but it did stick in my head for long enough that I’ve now written 4,000 words about it. So at the very least it’s the interesting sort of bad book, y’know?

[likelyamused]

Beginning / Previous / Next

Transcript below the cut.

Celia: [silent] AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! [audible] Ugh!

Max: Did I just see you get out the window? What’s going on?

Celia: My parents are being assholes.

Max: Alright…

Celia: I got 68% in math in my report card-

Max: That’s great! (he sees her face) Isn’t it? You were afraid of failing that class. You passed. It’s almost 70!

Celia: See, that’s how I would like them to react. But no, it’s not good enough, I don’t put enough effort in. And now, I’ll  have a private tutor on Wednesdays to make sure I’m doing the work. As if I didn’t feel dumb enough.

Max: You’re not dumb. No one’s good at everything. You’re smart in ways I’m sure your parents would struggle with. 

Max: And you’re so underdressed for the temperatures we’re having right now. Come here.

Max: Better?

Celia: Better. I still hate my parents and don’t want to go back.

Max: I get it.

Celia: I guess you do.

Max: Celia?

Celia: Hm?

Max: There’s a lot of things I want to tell you. I’m not sure where to start. I guess talking about my parents is as good a place as any. 

My mom was really young when she had me. My dad is an addict, mostly alcohol, but he liked to try other things too. It didn’t take long before mom got into it also. They were mostly either passed out or fighting. I always had to be careful not to set them off. My grandma would check up on me often. She’d pick me up when things were rough. I’d live with her for a while. My mom would join us. Things would get better. I’d go back home and everything would start again. Until I was 8, got caught by the police destroying pumpkins with some friends on Halloween and they brought me back to my parents. They saw enough concerning things to call social services and I was put under the care of my grandmother. My mom got sober when gran got her diagnosis. She got custody back and promised her she would take good care of me. But when gran died, mom just went back to the bottle. She needed it ‘cause she was grieving.

Max: The day I left, my dad attacked me in my sleep ‘cause he was looking for my money to get his fix. And my mom came around right after to get her share. I hate my parents and don’t want to go back.

Celia: Max…

Max: Sometimes you have good parents that do shitty things. Other times, you just have shitty parents. Only you know which ones your parents are.

Celia: [sigh] I don't know.

Max: Holy shit! Your hands are cold!

Celia: You can warm them up for me.

Max: I’d love to, but there’s limits to what I can do out here. Let’s get you home before you freeze.

[faecaribou]

Stardew Valley Tumblr Simulator

📚 solarian_bookworm

Hey guys! Any tips on how to get this little boy I'm tutoring to actually pay attention to my lessons? He's not very good at reading, but I'm even letting him pick out which books and he still can't focus! We don't have good education where I'm from (Pelican Town) so any chance he has at learning is from me. How do I help him?

🎷 zuzu-zoomer Follow

Feed him a stew that makes him go blind

🧭 stardewexplorer Follow

feed him the stew that makes you blind for one day

🎡 fuck-gotoro Follow

stew that blinds him for one day

⚅ desert-clubber Follow

Perhaps feed him a stew that makes him go blind for one day?

🪩 insomniac-boy Follow

1 day blinding stew

✨ sparkle-on Follow

wait guys isnt pelican town the place where once a year when the governor visits everyone puts an ingredient into a big pot and they make a stew and everyone eats from it??? dont give this poor girl this advice 😭😭😭😭😭

🎷 zuzu-zoomer Follow

lmao thats hilarious. do it

📚 solarian_bookworm

...I think I'll just ask his mom for advice. Thanks though...

250 notes

🧵 parrot-enthusiast

halfway through the brand new dress! embroidering it is taking forever ugh

3 notes

🗺️ superhaterlock Follow

Solarian Chronicles sucks

📔 sc-fanatic Follow

if you say one more word on this subject im going to kill you

🗺️ superhaterlock Follow

I just don't get why defending and healing gives you a better score than attacking

📔 sc-fanatic Follow

oh you mean the rpg game based on the books. continue

💿 seb-codes

:( i like the game

30 notes

🎸 pop_punkist

Come see my band perform live tonight at Zuzu City!

🚙 jojacolaaddict Follow

Hi yes I'd like to file a complaint. i went to your concert and I saw that damn eldritch monster that I swear I saw last week. What the fuck is that and what meme did I miss

🎸 pop_punkist

uh. are you talking about the farmer? they're actually the one who helped me start my bad they're sick as fuck. do you mind

🚙 jojacolaaddict Follow

what the fuck is the farmer

15 notes

💣 back-in-town Follow

AITA for yelling at my wife?

I just came home from active deployment against the Gotoro army. i lost a lot of friends in the war. I was having a bad day and my wife tried to make my popcorn to cheer it up because it used to be my favorite but it reminded me of the bombs. I yelled at her that she should know better but the local farmer was at our house and told me not to take out my pain on my wife. Am I the asshole?

🎡 fuck-gotoro Follow

NTA thank you for your service. if she did any kind of research on how to help people with PTSD from the war she would know to not be making loud banging noises like that

🏴‍☠️ piratewreck Follow

What? YTA why would his wife know. she was trying to make his favorite food. she should divorce him

28 notes

I started this tumblr stimulator post and then forgot about it and gave up 😭

[lillaydee]

In Time Part 3

Rancher Joel Miller / Reader

You lost your dear Uncle. Your TV Star boyfriend dumped you. You needed a job. You got one at a ranch in Wyoming. Where you met Joel. A very grumpy man. Grumpy man has issues.

WARNINGS:

Grumpy Joel, Hurt Joel, Grieving Joel, Joel is Bad at Feelings (The Last of Us), Joel Needs a Hug (The Last of Us), Joel Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (The Last of Us), Mentions of Hostage Situation and Shooting, Alternate Universe - No Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Mutual Pining, Fluff and Angst

SERIES MASTER LIST

Part 2

---

Everyone looked at each other in silent recognition and took a deep breath of disappointment. Ellie stood still, hands fidgeting with her hoodie, head down. Tess pulled a chair out, and told her to go get herself some breakfast, ignore him, she said.

Ellie ate quietly, quickly, and asked to be excused before you even finished breakfast. Penny went with her, and Maria and Tommy left soon after, telling you they’ll be seeing you around.

On your way to town, you asked Tess how long she had worked at the ranch. She told you she practically grew up there. Her dad worked there, a close friend to the Millers. Tess’s dad used to take her to the ranch after picking her up from school, being a single father. She would spend time with the Miller boys, be it taking extra classes with a tutor or just roughing it with them. When her dad died when she was sixteen, the Millers took her in, sent her to college, generally becoming the daughter they never had. And she had stuck around ever since, coming back to manage the ranch after college. The Millers were retired now, living at a community for seniors that they started with their friends about fifty miles away. Joel and Tommy ran the ranch now, with her assistance.

She then asked about you, and you told her the gist of your life story. She was very friendly and seemed to take no nonsense from Joel at all. He can be an ass, she said, but he’s a good guy. You found yourself rolling your eyes out the window at that.

You longed to ask what his problem was with you and Ellie but decided against it. That’s the problem with you, though. You were reserved. Sometimes you wondered if that was just you, or it was the remnants of your late, very British parents in you. Always overly polite, always apologizing, always keeping your thoughts to yourself.

When you got to town, you took your phone out for the first time that day, since you didn’t have cell reception at all since you arrived. You scrolled through the texts you received, one from Tess telling you she left dinner on your deck, one from your friend asking if you had arrived safely, and 73 messages from David. You didn’t bother reading them all, but from what you could gather, he came looking for you when he heard you had sold Benny’s house. You rolled your eyes at this – you lived there for five whole months after Benny passed, handling his estate. No David came-a-looking then. He wanted to know where you were. His messages went from pleading to anger to long rants of how it was your fault he cheated, to more pleading before reverting back to anger and finally a ‘fuck you’ ended the long list. You just took a deep breath and deleted his thread completely.

You got your list out and prepared yourself to make your stay at the cabin easier. A new phone number that guaranteed cell service and internet connection at the cabin, a lot of ramen, other toiletries, groceries and the likes. The store was pretty well stocked, but the most important item on your list was nowhere to be found. You stared at the long wall of coffee and tea, looking for the brand and type of tea you couldn’t live without, and couldn’t find any. Shit. You only brought a box with you. You needed to order some online. With you feeling so out of place here, you needed the tea to feel at home somehow.

You stopped at the camping section, looking at fire starters and electric heaters, Tess joining you with a quizzical look on her face. You finally had to tell her about last night’s shenanigan with the stove, and she told you she will send Joel to teach you how to use it properly.

“NO!” you blurted out, a little too quickly for your liking. “I mean, it’s okay, I have cell service now. I can YouTube it. No need to trouble him.” You looked away quickly, still deciding to get the space heater just in case, placing the huge box in your trolley.  

Tess rounded up on you, her eyes fixed on yours. “Amy, the fuck did he say to you in the truck on the way over?”

You kept quiet, not wanting to say anything to make matters worse. Tess wouldn’t let it go. She kept muttering that she will kill him, already guessing what he had done despite you not saying anything. You had to beg her not to do anything. You just wanted to live in peace. Please. She huffed a breath and finally relented, telling you to go to her and Tommy straight away if he gave you any grief.

You stopped at the winter clothing section, getting yourself what you needed to survive working outdoors during winter, with Tess’s guidance. You ended up buying too many cable-knit sweaters and a much better, heavier jacket and gloves for yourself, all at a fraction of the price that useless puffy jacket you had come with.

After what felt like hours and two whole trolleys of stuff, one just filled with your new and improved winter clothing, you headed for the checkout counter. Tess grabbed some flowers from the flower section on the way there. As you were preparing to leave, you noticed Tess push one of your trolleys to an area between the entrance and exit, a wall of pictures and a row of flowers decorated it.

It was a memorial.

Lest We Forget, it said, followed by a date from 2 years ago.

There were about ten photographs there, pictures of employees and customers, you assumed. Tess stood silently between two pictures, before blowing kisses on both, and placed the flowers she bought beneath the pictures.

One was of a young teenage girl.

Sarah Miller.

Another of a beautiful brunette.

Annie Williams.

Tess pushed the trolley out, and you followed, choosing not to say anything at that moment.

---

***Warning*** Some vague description of a hostage situation ahead.

About ten minutes into the quiet drive back to the ranch, Tess spoke up.

“Sarah Miller was Joel’s daughter. Annie Williams was Ellie’s mother.”

You kept quiet as you digested the news. Joel had a daughter who died? The poor man.

“What happened?

“Some fugitives who were on the news were in the store, someone called 911 and when the cops got here, they held the whole store hostage to avoid being captured. Sarah and Annie lost their lives,” Tess wiped the tear that was threatening to slide down her cheek away. “Annie was a single mother, Penny’s best friend. So we took Ellie in, adopted her officially. Joel was never the same since. I mean, he had always been a grump, but after Sarah…” she shook her head slightly, “he hadn’t always had it easy ever since Sarah was born, with Sarah’s mother… but he made it work, and now…” she took a deep breath, quickly taking her eyes off the road for a second, looking at you with eyes that pleaded for you to understand why he was the way he was.

You nodded slowly, deciding not to press her further – although you were dying to know about Sarah’s mother. No matter. Not important. None of your business.

“Thank you for telling me.”

---

You stopped at the main office for lunch. Joel was just leaving and saw the amount of shopping you had done, all visible through the windows. He shook his head, muttering something under his breath, a cynical smirk on his lips. You wanted to pummel him. There you were, feeling sorry for him for what you had just learnt, and there he was, annoying the living shit out of you for no apparent reason. Again. Tess called your name from the front door, shaking her head, telling you to ignore him.

You met Ellie again during lunch. The girl was only 14. Your heart ached for her, losing her only parent as young as she did, as young as you did, in fact. You knew what it felt like. But at least, she had Tess and Penny, and you had Benny. You were both lucky someone cared enough for you two to take you in. But in retrospect, no one hated you the way Joel seemed to hate Ellie. You wondered why. But again, it’s none of your business.

She was very chirpy indeed. She marveled at your accent, not fully American, since you mostly talked to Benny and David who were both British, but not quite as British as the people on Downton Abbey, she said. You couldn’t help but laugh. This girl was going places, you thought. She asked you question after question upon finding out you had been to Europe, Florence, Italy, more specifically. She wanted to go and paint there one day, she said. When Tess told her it was time for her to do her chores, she groaned, but very quickly perked up when Tess said she was taking you around later to show you around. See you then Doc, she had yelled before running off through the back door. She’s a good kid, Tess said, getting up to drive you home, and you heartily agreed.

You were still unpacking your considerable shopping spree when someone knocked on the door. Tommy came in, bringing in more firewood for you, telling you that there were some in the box on your deck, and the shed between your office and the barn. He showed you how to use the stove really quickly, leaving the hatch slightly open and fiddled with a lever on the flue once he got the wood burning, and within seconds, you had a roaring fire. He told you when and how much you should close the hatch, and what to do with the lever, before leaving, saying he had something to attend to, but to give him or Tess a call should you need anything. You thanked him profusely and took your jacket off, enjoying the warmth that was starting to fill the room.

Air ventilation. Shit. What an idiot, Amelia.

You sat down with a cup of tea in your hands and some biscuits, intending to take a few minutes before Tess came to show you around. You mindlessly scrolled through your Instagram when you saw something that caught your eyes.

Dave Landon and Cleo Savvant are engaged!

Followed by a picture of the two kissing, a huge diamond ring glittering on her finger. There was a video too, where David spoke openly about how he had found the one, that he couldn’t live without her, how she was the love of his life, how he couldn’t believe he had wasted all this time on meaningless romance when she was right there in front of him.

Meaningless romance?

Fuck you David.

You went through your DMs, and saw one from him, over 50 messages.

You didn’t even read them. If they were anything like his texts they would just pull you down.

You deleted your Instagram account immediately. You didn’t want to think of this douche anymore. No one’s died from not having social media, right?

You added more wood in the stove, suddenly feeling slightly lighter than yesterday.

You looked around the cabin, the furniture had your stuff on them. This could be home for a year. As long as you can stay away from that grumpy man, you will be fine. You knew how to start a fire now. You’ll be okay.

Tess took you around that day, joined by a very willing Ellie. Your office was just a few yards away from your cabin, so that’s good. Frank, your assistant, lived just further down the road from you with his husband Bill, who was in charge of the stables. They seemed friendly enough, well… Frank seemed friendly. Bill was… something. But at least he wasn’t rude to you, or muttered under his breath at you, unlike a certain someone. Ellie seemed to have a great relationship with both of them, although Bill seemed to be annoyed with her most of the time, but even you could see he was not really annoyed.

As you went around looking at your new workplace, you felt more and more at ease. Your only trouble was with one man, and he seemed to be surrounded by very nice and welcoming people. Your new set of winterwear seemed to work well too. You no longer walked around like a vibrating, rustling robot, at the very least.

When you went home that day, the fire had gone out, but you managed to restart one, and it stayed burning. A happy smile lit your face. The cavewoman in you feeling so fucking accomplished with the successful lighting of the stove. You wanted to beat on drums while chanting, dance around naked and present offerings to the moon. You knew how silly it was. But really, you genuinely felt like you had just jumped past a huge hurdle.

After dinner, you wore your thickest sweater, put your thick elephant feet bedroom slippers on and slipped the hot water bottle between your layers. You went out onto the deck, your tea and a thick blanket in your hand, the stars twinkling merrily in the cold night. You sat on one of the wooden recliners and laid back, spreading the blanket over your lap. It was dark. You deliberately chose not to switch the lights on. You wanted to enjoy this for real. The twinkling stars, the kind you had never gotten to experience in LA.

“Hi Benny. Miss you.”

You told Benny about your day. Told him you learnt something new that day. You lit the fucking stove Benny! You bragged and bragged about it, as if nothing was more important in this world. Told him about Ellie, Tess, Penny, Tommy, Maria, Bill, Frank, Mrs Adler… and chose to stop there. You talked and talked and talked, laughed at your own jokes, sipping on your tea as you continued talking to him. You could just imagine his replies, his facial expressions, his body language.

God you missed him.

You sat up and crossed your legs. You took a deep breath and told him David was engaged. And that he called his relationship with you a meaningless romance. You didn’t want to, but suddenly your eyes filled with tears. You just felt so stupid. After everything. He used to worry he would forget himself. That he would become one of those actors. The one who forgot the people who had been there for him. And yet, here he was, doing exactly that. You felt used. Belittled. You didn’t realize it, but a few drops of tears fell on your lap.

You heard footsteps. You looked up and down the street and saw someone walking towards your cabin. You couldn’t see who it was. You fiddled with your mug and waited for the person to pass – you still wanted to talk to Benny but didn’t want to be caught talking to yourself. The person got closer, he stopped for bit, fiddled around his pocket and suddenly there was a small flare of a lighter illuminating his face. He continued walking once the cigarette was lit.

Oh damn it. It’s him.

Yeah…

“Good night Benny. Talk tomorrow.”

His pacing faltered slightly, and then continued. When he got nearer to you, he looked around a bit, and not seeing anyone, asked who you were talking to.

You got up, shaking your head a bit, and said good night Mr Miller.

“Joel.”

You stopped in your tracks and turned around to look at him. He must’ve been able to see your confused face.

“Call me Joel. Mr Miller is my dad.”

Oh wow. He sounded… human. You didn’t know what to make of that, so you said goodnight again, not bothering to address him by his name, and went inside to the warmth of your cabin and shut the door. You could hear him shuffle about a little outside before his hesitant footsteps started walking away again. When you peeked, he was going back to the main house, instead of the other way.

Wait – was he here to see you? Why else would he walk this way, only to turn back once you went inside?

No… that couldn’t be.

Nah…

That night, you went to bed in a simple pair of pajama pants and t shirt, and there was only one duvet on your bed, the room was nice and toasty.

See? Things were already looking up.

---

Joel walked back towards the main house, feeling frustrated at his failed mission. Tess had come barging into his house after driving you back, asking him what he had done to you on the journey to the ranch.

The thing about Tess was, she had a way… something… that made him nervous. She had balls. He was sure she could skin him alive. Tess went on a rant about how alone you must be feeling, being in a new place, having lost the man who raised you, leaving all you knew and were familiar with behind, and him scoffing and mumbling under his breath at every little thing you did was not helping. He couldn’t even get a word in edgewise. Her words came out like bullets, and they were all aimed at him.

He had no defence. Well, he did, but he couldn’t tell her. Even he knew his defence was dumb. He just couldn’t help himself. He’s an ass. He would willingly admit that. He knew you were already determined to stay away from him. He knew the moment you refused his offer to drive you over for breakfast. He knew you had come to the realisation that you were the target of his frustrations, although you didn’t know why, and you were refusing to acknowledge or communicate with him further. You were staying out of his way.

But of course, Tess being one of the few people who could knock some sense into his head, managed to make him feel bad for how he acted towards you. In fact, he felt bad when he heard you sniff in the truck as he made his way out of Jackson Hole airport. He felt bad when you refused the sandwich he bought for you at the gas station. He felt bad when his attempt to coax you into eating came out like a fucking bark from an aggressive dog, complete with a rant stemming from his tired bones and frustrations. He had no idea why he did that. When you somehow fell over and your head landed in his lap, his heart softened. He had to stop himself from stroking your hair. You just looked so vulnerable. He did manage to utter a civilized sentence to you, but you seemed to have had enough of his nonsense and ignored him. You had ignored him since then.

And still he couldn’t help himself from being huffy about the little things you did. Tea over coffee indeed. Who does that? And that useless puffy jacket you wore, and that woollen hat with the pom-pom thing at the top.  And the amount of shopping you did. And your accent. You had lived in LA most of your adult life. Pronounce your Rs for God’s sake.

Actually, you did look adorable in that jacket and hat. They bring out the colour of your eyes. The pom-pom thing wobbled when you moved, it made you look cute. And your accent made you sound really smart. And the way your lips moved when you speak…

Anyway.

He walked over to your place to apologize. He had to walk, to gather up the courage to say sorry. To tell you he was sorry for being a grump. As he got closer his nerves got worse, the walk had done nothing to calm him down. He decided to take a smoke break before knocking on your door, but you were outside. The shock of hearing you speak in the dark rendered the supposedly calming smoke break useless. He asked you who you were talking to, just to break the ice. But you had shut him down. You called him Mr Miller. And ignored his request for you to call him Joel. He felt so dumb. He contemplated knocking on your door, complete the apology mission. But he was worried you might think he’s creepy.

So he walked back home, internally kicking himself.

He will try again tomorrow.

---

You decided to go to the stables the next day. You were due to start working on Monday, so you wanted to at least get to know your patients before you did. You went into the smaller stable first, Bill already there before you. He was very helpful, introducing you to the horses one by one, letting you get yourself acquainted to them.

Ellie came in while you were there, happy to see you. She beelined towards a chestnut mare, and the sweet creature nuzzled her, welcoming her, clearly happy to see her, making her giggle. You gave an apple to a particularly handsome stallion, Callus, which he happily accepted, making you smile. But when Bill told you he was Joel’s personal horse, you thought, shame! Such a gentle giant having to deal with such a grumpy man. You gave him a few head rubs, before going over to join Ellie.

“Who is this beautiful lady?” you asked her.

“This is Shimmer. She’s my favourite,” Ellie said.

“I can tell,” you said, “She likes you. Do you ride her often?”

“No… I’m not actually allowed…”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” a low voice reverberated through the stable.

You, Ellie and Bill turned around. Joel was standing in the middle of the stable, his fists clenched by his side, his face serious. He was clearly angry, but controlled his voice, determined not to spook the horses.

He took a few steps closer, his eyes fixed on Ellie. You immediately stepped in front of her.

“Joel, don’t,” Bill said to him calmly.

Joel ignored him. “I told you never to come near her. How many times do I have to say it? Go!”

Ellie quickly walked out, head down. You stared at the grumpy man, putting all your feelings, your frustrations, dissatisfaction, disapproval, disappointment into your stare, before following Ellie out.

Joel closed his eyes, disappointed with himself. He had come in here looking for you, hoping to apologize. But when he saw Ellie with Shimmer… he looked towards the door, only to be met with Bill’s disapproving look.

He sighed, and gave Shimmer some head rubs, chastising himself internally.

---

“Ellie, wait.”

She stopped and turned around. She looked upset but was not teary at all. Strong girl, you thought. You didn’t remember being that nonchalant when someone chastised you at her age.

“Come with me,” you said, pulling her hand with you to your cabin.

She looked around your cabin in wonder, and her eyes positively rounded when she saw you had pop tarts. You popped a couple in the toaster and the two of you sat down, nibbling at the hot snack.

“You okay?”

“Yeah… he does that a lot. I’m used to it.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s right.”

“I know. But he has a good reason to hate me. So I just try to stay away from him.”

“He hates you?”

“Yeah. He told me many times to stay away from Shimmer, but I never listen. I like her.”

“Why won’t he let you go near Shimmer?”

“Shimmer was his daughter Sarah’s horse.”

“And?”

Ellie kept her head down, seemingly very interested in the pop tart.

“I’m the reason Sarah died.”

---

Part 4

[flowery-laser-blasts]

It's the year 2023 and so much has changed...

Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable-Possible, now in their mid-thirties, work alongside Global Justice with their own specialized team (including Wade, Felix, and Jim & Tim). As for Dr. Drakken and Shego... After helping prevent the invasion of the Warlordians, Dr. Drakken and Shego were pardoned from almost all of their prior crimes against the safety of the world and eventually became, in their own words, 'neutral'. At times, they even aid Team Possible with intel, after all; who knows more about how villains do than ex-villains?

Dr. Drakken started working on his own world-improving inventions because he realized that 'positive' recognition from the world feels better than being despised by everyone, and this way he can rub it even more into James Possible's face... Shego became an elite mercenary/hitwoman after tutoring the best of the best agents of Global Justice for 5 years -it was part of her 'community service'- She now works separately from everyone, but always comes back home before Drakken finishes making dinner.

One day, Dr. Drakken thought of a hypothesis: if television programs are just a glimpse into an alternative reality and aliens exist with their ultra-advanced technology, then who says that alternative timelines aren't real? "Maybe we could learn from that to improve ours!"

He worked tirelessly on trying to find out if alternative universes or timelines exist, maybe ones where he and Shego were always good and Possible and Stoppable were the baddies, imagine!

But then he found something...

Dr. Drakken found out that there was a timeline that lined up exactly with the one they were in, except something was drastically different. It was stuck in some kind of purgatory; stuck in place but also as if looping over and over again. Separate from everything surrounding it but at the same time trying to free itself from its slumbering state.

Drakken looked into it, fascinated that this timeline could co-exist with theirs but at the same time not. What changed? Then it hit him.

"Tempus Simia... that Monkey plan-- It actually happened!?" Dr. Drakken sometimes ruminated on the weird feelings he had on the day the trio, and Shego, decided to abruptly give up on that time-traveling plan. None of them ever said or mentioned anything about it to one another, especially Monkey Fist... he became different. Drakken wished he could ask him about what happened that day, but alas the man became a supernaturally petrified lawn ornament.

"Did Monkey Fist know something about that statue that we didn't? Did the plan work? Is that what that timeline is?" Drakken became ansty, he needed to know what happened. Not that he was going to return to being evil, no-no, this was purely scientific, and well- curiosity took the upper hand. Perhaps he was a fair ruler in this 'time capsule'.

After months and months of calculations and testing, he managed to do it; Drakken succeeded in making a portal device that could connect and stabilize the broken timeline to ours. Shego wasn't entirely sure about this plan but decided to stick around to ensure the man wouldn't end up killing himself and everyone on the planet in some freak accident.

After flipping the switches and turning on the safety protocols, the machine started producing a whirling sound. No sooner did a small portal form, giving them a glimpse of the dystopian world of the Supreme One. "Wow, that-- is that me?" Shego pointed at a fallen statue. "Sheesh, who would've thought the sidekick could ever take over the world, right Drew?" Shego teasingly jabbed his arm, making Drakken roll his eyes in response. "Shego, dumpling, darling love of my life, I've apologized thousands of times already, can you finally let it go?!" He received a snicker in response, "I guess not, nevertheless, let me concentra--!" A loud bang snapped the two out of their banter, "Dr. D? What was that?!" Shego instinctively lit her hands as the room turned dark for a moment, the whirling sounds of the portal device intensified, and no sooner bright red warning signs started flashing while a deafening alarm went off around them. Shego looked at Drakken, who was frantically trying to close the portal. "Something's trying to push its way into here! I-- I haven't been able to properly secure that part yet-- Shego!" Drakken's face paled as he looked back in the direction of the portal.

"The Supreme One, actually." An icy chill went through Shego's spine as she heard her own voice coming from directly behind her. "I already thought, what took you so long Doc? It's not fun being stuck in time; ain' I right, Dr. D?" Both Shego and Drakken watched in disbelieve at the arrival of the Supreme One's sidekick, who within seconds hurled himself at the machinery, destroying most of it and breaking off the connection to the fractured timeline.

Drakken tried to jump in and save what was left by making his flowers restrain the brute, but the man ripped the foliage away from him as if it were nothing. The sidekick threw Drakken aside and blocked Shego from trying to get to him, holding her in a lock.

The supreme one stepped closer and looked at her restrained self.

"Now that botany-boy is taken care of... tell us, Shego: Where is Kimmie?"

---

I hope you guys like my little sequel idea for 'A Sitch in Time'. I absolutely love this TV movie!! I'm not much of a writer but it was so much fun imagining this story while drawing!! As for the future designs of everyone: - Kim's outfit is based on Stephen Silver's older Kim design. - Ron now has a utility belt that actually works and gloves that can help him control his Mystical Monkey Powers. - Shego's outfit stayed relatively the same with some adjustments, why change what works right? - Dr. Drakken (now Professor Lipsky) traded his blue lab coat for a white one... dress codes apply at his shared workplace, but he still wears a blue dress shirt underneath it. Aside from that his eyes aren't as good as they used to be and his contact lenses were out of the question since they tampered with the eye-scanning-security-device (he ended up being left outside of the lab for 3 hours because of it), so now he just wears glasses.

I also wanted to include Rufus in the story; Now a senior rodent, Rufus spends his retirement days around the lab assisting Drakken with various experiments and small talk while Kim and Ron are on missions. Hope you enjoyed both the drawing and the mini fanfic!!

[cloudy-em]

The Deal - Lip Gallagher x Fem!Reader

To be honest, I don’t know why it started. I made a deal with Y/N that if she pretended to be my girlfriend so I could avoid Andrea, then I’d do whatever she wanted for a day. It was stupid. I didn’t even like Andrea. We had sex at a party one time and suddenly she was following me everywhere. Of all the people I could’ve asked to fake date me, I don’t know why I asked Y/N. Some neo-freudians can claim that it was my subconscious trying to manifest my hidden urges into real life, or a neuroscientist can claim that I’m not a genius and that I’m actually stupid. I’d definitely agree with both perspectives. 

At first I was shocked that Y/N even agreed. We’re close friends, sure, but it was definitely a higher-stakes ask. When she said yes, I felt a bubbling excitement, but I wrote it off as excitement that I could finally get Andrea to leave me the fuck alone. 

It started slow. We’d hold hands at school, skip class to smoke together. Nothing out of the ordinary for us. Usually, I’d hold her hand in the busy hallways to ensure she wouldn’t get pushed around, and we always shared our cigarette and weed stashes with each other. That was phase one. 

Phase two consisted of being seen alone together in public. I’d saved up some money from doing other kids’ homework, so I’d start taking Y/N out on dates. Not under the L or to the Alibi where we could get free beer, but actual dates where people would see us. Little diners nearby, nothing to expensive. We’d go after school most Fridays and get fries or milkshakes to share. Pretty soon, rumors were spreading that Lip Gallagher was no longer available for a quick fuck because he was dating Y/N L/N. 

Phase three was the phase I figured would keep Andrea away for sure. Y/N and I would leave classes and pretend to fuck in janitor’s closets and bathrooms, locking ourselves in and fake moaning, trying not to laugh at each other over how stupid it all seemed. She’d started sleeping over in my room as a “just in case”, and it worked out for both of us. If Andrea was ever walking by the house, she’d see us walking in or out together or in the windows. It worked for her because she got to avoid her home life. We’d share cigarettes curled up in the top bunk together, laughing over how we’d gotten $50 each from one kid’s tutoring session. Andrea didn’t stand down. 

Phase four was the last and final phase that Carl, Ian, and I had planned to keep Andrea away. Y/N and I would go to a party, drink a lot, get a little handsy, and head back home together. Andrea was a party girl for sure, and there’s no way she’d miss one, which made it easy for Y/N and I to execute the finale of the operation. Ryan Bodero was hosting a big party, and Y/N and I thought it would be a good one to finalize our mission. We arrived fashionably late (we smoked a joint together to help us get through the evening) and the party was in full swing. Drunk students everywhere, clouds of smoke, loud music, and enough alcohol to be a full-service bar. I squeezed Y/N’s hand, guiding her through the crowd. She let go of my hand to hold onto my bicep as she stood on her tip-toes to whisper in my ear. 

“Andrea’s over there, by the bar, you wanna get a drink?” she pulled away and smirked. I nodded at her before rejoining are hands and heading over to the “bar”. We stood right next to Andrea. Perfect. 

“Alright, baby, what do you want? I’ll make it for you,” I was playing the role of good boyfriend probably louder than I needed to, but whatever it took. Y/N giggled, twirling her hair and pretending to think. “Hmm, what about a vodka cranberry?” she requested. Of course, after being friends for years, I knew that’s what she wanted. I nodded and kissed her forehead before moving over down the counter to mix her drink. I’d never kissed her forehead before. The only PDA we exhibited were hugs and handholding, but it felt natural to place a kiss there, like I was keeping her safe while I was away. After everything she’s been through, it’s what she deserves. I’m supposed to be her loving boyfriend, afterall. 

I finish her drink and bring it over to her, a beer in my other hand for me. She takes her drink and takes a sip, knowing before she even tasted it I made it how she likes it. She smiled at me, wrapping one arm around my neck in a brief hug and pulling away. It was too soon. “Thanks, honey! I’m gonna go talk to Laila real quick and then I’ll be back!” I watched her walk away, smiling even after she left and leaned up against the counter, looking around the room. When I turned to my right, Andrea was suddenly there. 

“So, you and Y/N, huh?” she asked. Thank god, she’s finally accepting that I don’t like her, and she’ll move on. “Yeah,” I sighed. “Best thing that ever happened to me!” I laughed. “Ha, well, I don’t think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to her,” Andrea says. I’m confused, and she can see it on my face, so she grabs my chin and turns my face to where she’s looking. Y/N and Ryan Bodero are talking, a bit too close for comfort, and his hands are on her hips. Only, she doesn’t seem to want them there. I feel my blood boil, ripping my face from Andrea’s grip. 

“Hey, asshole!” I say, walking towards Ryan. “That’s my girl, didn’t you know?” Ryan rolls his eyes and laughs, “No, but I don’t think she cares.” He pulls her closer for emphasis, but she tries to pull away, an uncomfortable look on her face. “Let me go,” she says to him before looking at me, practically begging me to do something. 

“Alright look, Ryan, I get that you have no respect for women, but let me teach you something. When a lady says no, you respect her,” I tell him, smashing my beer bottle on the side of his head. He lets her go and stumbles backwards, but comes back for me. We throw a few punches back and forth. My knuckles are hot, but I barely notice the pain. He can’t treat Y/N like that. I won’t allow it. He gets me in the eye, and I’m sent backwards. I go to lurch forward again, but Y/N touches my bicep. 

“Lip, you’re hurt, let’s go please,” she says. I nod at her, seeing her concern, but I turn to Ryan. “This isn’t over.” Ryan turns back to his friends as Y/N and I walk away. I hear her mutter, “yes, it is over.”

It’s a short walk back to my place, Y/N still clung to my arm, quiet but worried. When we walk inside, she tells me to go sit in the kitchen. I do. She grabs ice and some towels to clean up the blood and put ice on my eye to keep the swelling down. I’m sitting in the chair, and she’s standing in front of me, one of the few times she’s ever taller than me. I can’t help but stare up at her, but she doesn’t meet my gaze, too focused on cleaning the blood from my lip and nose. 

“Lip,” she starts. “You can’t just start fights like that. Someone could call the cops or maybe he’ll press charges! You can’t afford to go to jail.” 

“I know, baby,” the nickname rolling off my tongue like second nature and I barely notice her shoulders tense. “But he wasn’t respecting you, and he needed to be taught a lesson.” 

“No, he didn’t-” she starts to argue. “Dammit, you’re my girlfriend and I love you! Let me look out for you, please!” I’m slightly exasperated, not even realizing my confession. She’s shocked, lips parted like she wants to say something but can’t. I sigh, slouching in the chair, defeated. 

“Look, I know that wasn’t the deal. You didn’t sign up for a real relationship. But we’ve been friends for years and I’ve had a crush on you but I kept trying to get over it because I didn’t wanna fuck things up and here I am fucking things up but the more we fake dated, the more it felt real and I know in reality you’re single and you can do what you want but seeing my girlfriend being harassed by some asshole just made me so mad and I just lost it. I’m sorry.” I don’t usually talk about my feelings. I don’t even remember the last time I talked about my feelings. But I needed her to know that it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, that I wasn’t just lonely. That I really cared for her. I closed my eyes, preparing for the worst. 

I feel her run her fingers through my hair, her rings gently tugging on the strands. 

“You’re right, baby,” she says softly. I look up at her, and we make eye contact for the first time since we walked through the door. “You’re my boyfriend. I should let you look out for me, just like you should let me look out for you. We’re in this together, right?” I nod, at a loss for words, still processing. I wrap my arms around her, my head hitting just below her breasts as I hold her tightly, her fingers still moving through my hair. 

“What do you say we forget this whole deal and we just date like we’re supposed to?” 

We both liked that idea.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

thank you so much for reading!!

requests are open, so send me a message if you have any ideas or if you'd like to join one of my taglists!

[nutzgunray-lvt]

Class 1A Dynamics (Part 2)

This is going to be consolidated, so I apologize for the long length, but it's going to serve as a conclusion as to why I believe Class 1A's reputation as a found family is undeserved.

In my opinion, the Final Exam arc and Forest Camp arc is when we start to see the cracks in Class 1A's dynamics, as well as their more problematic moments that don't match how they supposedly are as characters. We do get really nice moments of Momo offering her home and services as a tutor to a handful of her classmates (Jirou's interactions with Momo's mom were really cute), but that's it.

Kirishima hears from Bakugou's former middle school friends how they and Bakugou bullied Izuku for his Quirklessness... and promptly ignores it. Mr. Anti Bully hears that the role model he looks up to was/is a bully, and does NOTHING about it. Not even when Bakugou gets them kicked out of whatever place they were studying at and blames IZUKU for it does he do anything other than say, "Lol, classic Bakugou!"

One of the biggest moments, in my opinion, is when Ochako, Ida, Momo, and Tsu (I think it was them? I can't remember) have no objections to Bakugou backhanding Izuku. They hear Recovery Girl saying that they have no communication... and take it at face value. No trying to stand up for him, no saying that Bakugou's the instigator between them, nothing.

(To say nothing how Sero failed the exam for being taken out of the arena unconcious, even though Bakugou passed despite ALSO being unconcious when he was dragged out of the arena 🙄)

The actual camp itself was pretty nice in regard to student interactions. Shouji was worried for both Tokoyami and Izuku (Izuku looked so cute being carried by Shouji 🥹), and Izuku made sure not to place Bakugou's safety over Tokoyami's when Dark Shadow went on its rampage. Tokoyami in turn was perfectly willing to sacrifice his life for Izuku, Shouji, and everyone else's safety. Aoyama risks his life and position as the traitor by clearing a path for Bakugou to get to camp. It was extremely annoying how Todoroki had to keep telling Bakugou not to run towards the villains and not to make the poison gas worse by using his Quirk (collateral damage is a concept Bakugou doesn't give a FUCK about), but I guess that was nice or whatever.

Then came the rescue.

Shouji aknowledges how guilty Izuku and Todoroki must feel about Bakugou's kidnaping, and then Kirishima and Tsu get into an arguement about whether or not to leave the rescue to the adults. I HATE how Kirishima guilted Izuku into joining the rescue. Izuku had broken limbs and a high fever to the point of having seizures. He was unconscious for three days, and for him to be told, "You can still reach him with your arms!" when everyone in class knows Bakugou would (and DID!) refuse Izuku's help is disgusting. In theory, it's nice how they take Bakugou's ego and feelings into account when they decide a small team is going to rescue him (I'll have more to say on that later). But then, Ida tries convincing Izuku not to go... by punching his sick and injured friend hard in the face. Ida, what the FUCK? Did he ever apologize for doing that?

And then not only does Bakugou not ever thank Momo, Ida, Todoroki, Kirishima, and Izuku for rescuing him and risking their place at UA, Aizawa then acts as though the class needs to regain his trust (even though they had no idea the rescue team went through with their plan) when it really should be the other way around. Great father figure he is, right?

So they move to the dorms, and we get a really nice moment where Tsu tearfully apologizes for saying that the rescue team were acting villanous in saving Bakugou. This is all well and good, but then we get to the Licensing Exam. As awesome as it was to see Ida helping Aoyama secure a place in the final round, as awesome as it was seeing everyone defer to Izuku's judgment, it all was completely undone by the bullshit house arrest.

I've gone on and on about how it's my least favorite part of the entire story, but seeing 1A not aknowledge Bakugou's bullying of Izuku yet again really soured my opinion on them. Ida especially gets the brunt of my criticism here, because as one of Izuku's best friend, he should have figured that Izuku not only didn't want to break curfew, he's NEVER looked for a fight when it came to Bakugou. And then when Izuku apologizes (barf) for defending himself, they all accept it like he did something wrong.

I HATE it, and for a while, I hated 1A because of it.

Then we get some smaller moments between that and the stupid Dark Izuku arc that are pretty nice. They express worry and relief for those involved in Eri's rescue, Izuku encourages Jirou to not be afraid to express herself musically, and Mina teaches Aoyama how to dance before the School Festival. Everyone criticizes Izuku for running around and trying to get candy apple ingredients for Eri, and they make fun of him for getting in trouble after the Gentle Criminal fight, blah blah blah. No one cheers for him or encourages him during his mock interview with Mt. Lady, but whatever.

Then Izuku leaves UA.

Not ONCE do ANY of Class 1A consider why he left, even though he literally tells them in the goddamn letters he left for them. Not once do they call out Bakugou for being the actual reason he has such low self-esteem and self sacrifical tendancies. Not once do they consider having just his closest friends find him and bring him back. After all, most of them admit they don't really know Izuku on a personal level. They don't even stand up for Momo when he jumps down her throat for not calling him by his stupid hero name.

Nope, they all decide to just bumrush him and let Bakugou lead the charge.

They let Bakugou make fun of him, project his own flaws onto him, and not once aknowledge that Izuku is neither in the physical condition nor mental condition to be hearing any of that. They then quite literally beat him into submission. Sure, some of the classmates try saying nice things to him about how he helped all of them (Dark Shadow was so gentle with Izuku 🥺), but Sato tries guilt tripping him about Eri, which is just gross.

Then comes the infamous Youtube Apology, where Bakugou talks about Izuku's Quirklessness and how that made him lesser than Bakugou in his eyes. No one reacts to any of this, and instead of just letting Izuku sleep or getting him to the fucking doctor, they throw him in a bath like that'll fix anything. We do get an awesome moment where Tokoyami and Sato call out Bakugou for bullying Izuku again despite supposedly apologizing, but that's chump change, considering what all they put Izuku through.

And then comes the traitor reveal.

I don't blame 1A for being angry at Aoyama, considering how his actions put everyone in danger, but I think it's so strange due to two things. One, Aoyama was clearly coerced into being a traitor. His parents were the ones who made the deal with AFO, and Aoyama was obviously remorseful for his actions. Two, just look at Bakugou. He was the one who not only ran towards the villains in the first place, but everyone had to keep him from making everything worse when they were trying to protect him.

And yet who's the one that gets treated with consideration and kid gloves?

Bakugou.

I can't say anything about the Final War, because everything is so fucking messy, but I guess I will say how nice it is that the class protects the girls from Mineta's sexual harrassment and don't take it laying down.

To close off, Hori did a piss poor job in showing organic development of 1A as supposed super close friends and found family. They all deserved better than what they wound up becoming, and it's just really sad all around.

[vodika-vibes]

congrats on 650!!!!! could I get a regency AU with Fives? I've been obsessssedddd with bridgerton lately and why not smash my two favorite things rn together! you can do whatever you want with the story!

Let's Fly

Summary: After the untimely deaths of your father and older brother, you find yourself living in a home that is both cold and unwelcoming. Convinced that your father and brother were murdered, you reach out for help. This is how you meet Private Investigator Fives.

Pairing: Pre-ARC Trooper Fives x F!Reader

Word Count: 1923

Warnings: None

Prompt: Regency AU

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: So, when you said Regency AU, you definitely meant Murder Mystery a la Sherlock Holmes right? Because that's what this is. Anyway, this does end on a cliffhanger, it gives me something to come back to if I feel like it, and it lets the readers decide what they want to happen. I hope you like it! The name came from the song I was listening to when I started writing it.

“I am very sorry about your husband and stepson, Lady Harride.” Father Paul says as he takes your stepmother’s hands in his own, trying to offer comfort.

“Thank you, Father.” Your stepmother, Cassandra Harride, says quietly. She hasn’t cried once since the deaths of your father or brother at the beginning of the week.

You know that people grieve differently, but you’re pretty sure she’s not grieving at all. 

Not that you’re crying either. You’ve long since run out of tears. 

You don’t look at your stepmother or Father Paul as they speak next to you. No, you keep your gaze locked on the identical coffins at the front of the church. Coffins identical to the one that you buried your mother in three years ago.

You can’t help but wonder if you’ll be buried in an identical coffin too.

“Mistress Harride,” Father Paul kneels at your feet, and you slowly turn your gaze to the man who’s watched you grow up, “I am so sorry for your loss.”

You feel numb. Numb and empty.

“Thank you, Father.” You say automatically.

“If either of you need anything,” He continues as he looks from you to your stepmother, and then back again, “Please, don’t be afraid to let the church know. We are here for you.”

“Thank you, Father. I’ll let you know.” Your stepmother says politely, “Are you ready to go?” She asks as she lightly touches your shoulder.

You’re quiet for a moment, and then slowly get to your feet, “Yes. I suppose there’s nothing left here for me.”

Father Paul stands as well, “Will we see you both this weekend?”

“Of course, Father. We wouldn’t miss it.” Your stepmother says quietly, “Excuse us.”

She leads you through the church, and then out to where the family carriage is waiting. The footman helps her into the carriage first, and then you, and shuts the door with a very final-sounding click.

“That was a very nice service,” Cassandra notes thoughtfully, “Reminds me of your mother’s service.”

“They were identical.” You reply numbly, “Same flowers, same sermon, same mourners—”

“Ah. Yes, of course.” She falls silent and adjusts her skirt, “So, I was thinking,” She begins, “How would you feel about moving into the East wing?”

The East Wing. Where your brother lived.

“If you like, Cassandra.” You say quietly.

“I think it’ll be for the best.” She continues, “Maker knows that the balcony outside your bedroom needs to be repaired.” The older woman pauses, “I would hate for something to happen to you.”

“...of course, Cassandra.”

Your father paid for you to attend the nicest boarding schools on the continent. He paid for tutors and lessons and everything in between. He felt that your education was one of the most important things that he would ever gift you.

As a result, you are not a stupid woman.

You know that your father’s and brother’s deaths were not an accident. They were killed. And, if you were a suspicious person, you might wonder if your mother was murdered as well.

And, really, there’s only one person who would benefit from all of their deaths. The same woman who you now live alone with.

“Cassandra?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I was thinking of going into the city later today.” You murmur, “If you have no qualms about me borrowing the carriage?”

“Today?”

You don’t look at her, your gaze locked on the trees racing passed the carriage instead, “I’m finding the house… stifling, these last few days. I believe that getting out will be good for me.”

Cassandra nods slowly, “Of course. I felt much the same after my father died.”

At that, you pull your gaze away from the window, “How long did it take you to feel normal again?”

She drops her gaze to her lap, “Years. And even now, I wake up some mornings expecting to hear his voice.” There seems to be genuine concern in her voice, “The pain never really goes away. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, though.”

“No. Not really.”

Cassandra nods, “I think a visit to the city will be good for you. Will you change out of your mourning gown?”

“I’ll change into a lighter one.”

“And you’ll wear your mourning veil.”

“Of course.” Your veil is much shorter than your stepmother’s, as the widow, hers is much longer. You allow your gaze to drift back out the window, and the carriage descends into a stilted silence.

Harride Manor has been in your family for seven generations. Built by one of your ancestors as a wedding gift for his wife. It houses over 80 people, half of them related to you.

Your stepmother believes that the house is hers.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. 

With the death of your father and brother the house and title now belong to your uncle, Mariano Harride. 

Uncle Mariano seems to have aged twenty years over the last week you note as he helps you out of the carriage and then ignores your stepmother. “My dear girl,” He places his hands on your shoulders, “How are you holding up?”

“As well as can be expected, uncle.”

“Yes,” He looks deeply pained, “I never expected to outlive your father. He’s always been healthy as a horse.” Uncle Mariano sighs deeply, “No matter, nothing will change now that the house is mine.”

“What?” Your stepmother asks as she approaches.

Your Uncle glances at her dismissively, “The house reverts to me with the death of my brother. You’ll be moved into the West Wing, Cassandra, with the rest of the extended family.”

Your stepmother flushes an ugly shade of red, “I just lost my husband and now I have to move?” She demands.

“Yes. You do.” He turns his back on her, and focuses his attention on you, “Of course, you’ll be allowed to keep your room.”

“I told her she needed to move into the East Wing.”

“It’s not your home anymore.” Uncle Mariano says sharply, “She can remain in her room until such time that she decides to marry.” He exhales slowly, “What are your plans for this afternoon, dear?”

“I was going to change and head into the city, Uncle. The house feels stifling these days.”

“Of course.” He lightly hugs you, “You’ve lost so much these last couple of years. You deserve a break.” 

“Thank you, Uncle.” You pull away from him and head into the house.

All you need is to change clothes, and then you can leave. 

Just a simple change of clothes, and then you can go and get help.

Private Investigator Fives sits in the living room in his brownstone, absently sorting the case files of the cases that he’s worked on in the past month. 

He owns this practice with his twin brother, though Echo has been away on a case of his own for the last two months. He knows that his twin is fine, Echo sends letters every other day after all, but he does miss him.

Fives pauses, mid-filing, when the doorbell rings. 

He sets his filing to the side and jogs over to the door, pulling it open with a polite smile. However, that polite smile is replaced with confusion when he sees the young woman on the doorstep.

She’s younger than him, probably by a couple of years. Her hair is covered with a black veil of mourning, and she’s clad in a mourning dress. And Fives realizes that he recognizes her.

“Mistress Harride,” He greets, “This is a surprise. Come in, come in.”  He opens the door wider and escorts her into the home, and over to one of the plush chairs.

“Thank you,” She folds her hands on her lap, “You’re the lead detective here, correct? Fives?”

“Yes, that’s me.” He sinks into a seat across from her, “Forgive me, Mistress Harride, but as I understand, your father and brother’s funerals were today—”

“You’re right. They were.” She agrees, “I…” She pauses and her hands curl around the dark material of her dress. 

Fives frowns, “You can tell me.”

She lifts her chin, and there are tears in her eyes, “I think my father and brother were murdered. And I fear that I might be next.”

He leans back in his seat, absently stroking his goatee, “As I understand, your father and brother were killed in a hunting accident.”

“No.” She pauses, “I mean, that is what the local authorities determined. But—”

“You don’t agree.”

“No.”

“Okay, tell me why.”

“My father and brother have been hunting their entire lives. They’ve always been careful. Especially after mom died.”

“Miss Harride, there’s no proof that your father and brother were murdered.” Fives says kindly.

“I know that.” She retorts, “I know there’s no proof. But I’m telling you, this wasn’t an accident.”

He sighs, “Miss Harride—”

“Detective.” She interrupts, “I lost my entire family in under three years. My father married my stepmother seven months after she died. And then my father and brother died less than two years later. There’s something not right.”

“Sometimes bad things happen.” Fives points out.

“Detective, if you don’t help me, the next time you see me will be in the news after I die in an accident.” She says quietly.

Fives leans back in his seat and stares at her, “You really think you’re in danger?”

“If not me, then someone else in my family.”

“...okay.”

“Detective?”

“I’ll take the case.”

Her entire face brightens, “You will?”

“I will. Is there anything else you feel like you need to tell me?”

She ducks her head and twists her skirt between her fingers.

“There is, isn’t there?”

“I…yes.” She shifts uncomfortably, “I don’t have any proof, but—”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for. Let’s hear it.”

“I think Mother was murdered too.”

“How did she die?”

“The doctor said she had a heart attack.”

“How old was she, when she died?” Fives asks.

“Late thirties.”

“Young for a heart attack. Did she have a heart condition?”

“No. The Doctor thought it was strange too, but he said that it happens sometimes.” She replies.

“Hm.” Fives taps the arm of the chair he’s sitting in, “You know, there are some poisons that can mimic heart attacks.”

“You think my mom was poisoned?”

“I think it’s possible, but I have no proof. Yet.” He stands, “Do you have a carriage?”

“Yes. It’s waiting at the station.” She replies.

“Wonderful.” Fives moves around the living room, gathering his go-bag and pulling his jacket on, “Well then, shall we?”

“You have no idea how much I appreciate this.” She says as she stands and follows him to the front door.

“Don’t thank me yet.” He opens the door and lets her out of the house. “However, this is my promise to you, Miss Harride.” Fives says as he takes your hand and brings your knuckles to his lips, “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

“You mean it?”

“I swear on my life.” Fives promises as his gaze locks with hers.

“Well, that’s something for me to thank you for then, isn’t it?” She asks with a small smile.

“I suppose it is.” Fives agrees, he releases her hand and motions for her to walk with him, “Now, I need you to tell me everything you can about your parents and brother. And all of the players in this game.”

“I can do that, where would you like me to start?”

Fives grins at her, “Tell me about your Stepmother, Miss Harride.”